


Blue Ruin

by inb4invert



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Genre: 1940s, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Crossover, Detective, Don't copy to another site, Eventual Smut, Face Punching, Hollywood, M/M, Mashup, Minor Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sex Work, WWII, cartoon sex, cartoons, cw for murder case, hardboiled crime, humans and toons, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2019-11-23 14:32:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18153119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inb4invert/pseuds/inb4invert
Summary: Walking into the Ink and Paint Club was like stepping straight into bedlam. Outside, there was just the regular street and the regular joes who walk it. Inside: a screaming, laughing little piece of Toontown.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" Gradence Au that literally no one asked for and I'm giving you anyway. 
> 
> Some helpful notes and a bit of history:
> 
> Early porn films were called "blue movies" because the cheap production rendered the black and white film slightly blue.  
> Credence in this story is essentially a retired "porn" cartoon, and is entirely visually inspired by brain_curry's beautiful gradence art, which you can see a glimpse of in my mood board for this fic on my twitter under the same name (inb4invert) 
> 
> Betty Boop was an early black and white cartoon with sound. She was created mainly by Max Fleischer and debuted in the Talkatoon short, Dizzy Dishes. 
> 
> In this story, Detective Graves served in the war where he spent a good deal of his time there fighting an experimental German cartoon unit that the American troops nicknamed the "PlaToon." 
> 
> This fic takes place in 1948, roughly one year after the events of the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film.

_Los Angeles. 1948._

 

 

Trust my luck, I had to go and fall in love with a goddamn _‘toon_.

If you knew me, you'd see what's funny about that. If you knew this town, you'd see what ain't so funny about somebody bumping them off. Toons, that is.

 

Walking into the Ink and Paint Club was like stepping straight into bedlam. Outside, there was just the regular street and the regular joes who walk it. Inside: a screaming, laughing little piece of Toontown.

The entrance was nothing much to notice, a plain door with an awning and a single light halfway down an alley just as quiet as all the rest. I came in with the password the club's owner, a guy by the name of Sam, gave me over the phone. _Walt sent me_.  
Above my head, a little peep door opened with a snap and a beady cartoon eye sized me up through it while I said the ridiculous phrase. “Walt” didn't send me, and if he ever did ask for my help I'd have had a few choice words for the guy.

The door opened up onto a dark passageway and I stepped into the shadow of the beady eye's owner. A gorilla, at least seven feet worth, stuffed into an ill-fitting tux and growling as if he was feeling every stitch. Tell the truth, I felt a little bad for the guy. Somebody could've drawn him up nice and comfy and decided they liked him angry instead. Says something about life if you think about it long enough, I guess.

A few feet down into the building's guts, I opened up the double doors and the sound hit me. The club was swank for a 'toon joint: vaulted ceilings and a big red-curtained stage front and centre. Every lamplit table was full of swells laughing and carrying on, drunk on champagne and the novelty of being personally catered to by a bunch of run-down 'toons. By this time of night, the place was crammed and getting looser by the minute, full of that same wild, unpredictable air I learned too well fighting 'toons back in the war. Like holding a live grenade with no knowing when the thing's about to go off. No wonder somebody’d gotten killed, working in a place like this.

I made my way up to the bar, keeping to the walls. Took my time with it, dodging patrons and penguin waiters and still getting jostled up against the art deco panelling every now and then. Nobody took much notice of me, just the way I prefer it. They were all too busy gawking at the lilac hippo on stage, dancing and pirouetting in a frilly pink tutu that fit about as well as the gorilla bouncer's tux. Down in the pit, a small orchestra were straining hard to keep in tempo with the mayhem. At least their suits seemed to fit all right, even if they were sweating buckets underneath.

They had an octopus for a bartender, which I'd say is a pretty smart move on the part of the proprietor. Pay the one 'toon to do the work of four men. He was bouncing along pouring drinks and shaking martinis, big crazy tongue lolling out and all eight arms in motion.

“Where can I talk to the guy who owns this place?” I asked and he just grinned in my face with that big stupid tongue of his still dangling. A delivery boy stacking crates behind the bar took pity on me and pointed down a corridor off to the right.  
“You can find Sam in there. His office is at the end of the hall on the left.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Help a guy out one more time, would you, and tell me what you recommend.”

The kid didn't even have to think about it twice. “The Obliviator,” he told me. “But only get the one. A couple of those and you won't even remember your own name, pal.”

I thanked him again and made to signal the octopus, but he was already pushing the glass in front of me with one tentacle while he wiped up somebody's spill with another. I nodded my thanks and downed the drink in one go. Might not talk much, but he was an excellent barkeep. I'd have been tempted to order another against the delivery boy's advice if I didn't need to keep my head on straight. Not that I didn't have plenty of things I'd like to forget, but a job's a job.

 

In the little office at the end of the hall, I found Sam where the kid said he'd be. He was sitting at what looked like a desk underneath all the paper and junk, pouring himself what had to be his fifth whiskey of the night. His hands were shaking so bad you'd think somebody had put a gun to his head and told him to drink up. As I came through the door, he squinted up at me with bloodshot eyes before knocking it back, one hand still on the bottle and fixing for a sixth.

Standing next to him, wringing her hands and patting his shoulder in consolation was Betty Boop herself, in the flesh. Well, not the flesh, but as close to it as a 'toon can get. I'd heard rumours she was working the clubs these days, like a lot of the old black and whites sent out to pasture, but I hadn't been sure I believed it. Spooky thing, seeing them now and then, stuck in time and lost as old ghosts. But then again, L.A.'s got more than a few of those hanging around.

“There, there,” she crooned, shaking her head sadly.

“Detective Graves, somebody's gone and killed my wife,” Sam choked out, right before he was racked with a heave of dry sobs.

Betty looked up at me with her big shining eyes and shrugged helplessly. It was clear she was the one holding it together enough to stay sharp, so I asked her what I needed to know.

“Where's the body?” I said. “And who found it?”

“She's in one of the dressing rooms,” she explained in that high baby voice of hers, a sound that used to be cutting edge all on its own. “Well… what's left of her, if you know what I mean.”

That brought a fresh wail from over by the desk and I could feel the frown settling onto my face with plans to stick around a while. “What's _left_ of her? What kinda murder are we talking about here?”

Eyes already too big for her face got even wider, and the first crack in Betty's composure started peeking through them. “Somebody gave her _The Dip_ ,” she whispered.

“You mean….” I reached up under the back of my fedora for a scratch, already feeling a headache starting to cook. I jerked a thumb towards the desk at the blubbering heap that used to be a man not long ago. “You telling me his wife was a 'toon?”

Betty's jaw just about hit the floor, and I really mean that. She gave her garter belt a nervous tug and rolled her eyes like I was the biggest fat head in town. “Well, yeah!” she squeaked. “You ain't never heard 'a _Debbie Diamond_? She's the star performer here and just about the luckiest girl in the world... before tonight, that is.”

“And who was it that found her? One of you two?”

She shook her head, looking towards the door and out to the hall I'd just come through. “Not us,” she said. “It was one of the waiters here, Credence Barebone. You ain't heard 'a _him_ before, have you?”

“Can't say as I have, doll,” I answered, wondering if the confession might send her into spinning fits this time.

Instead, she looked relieved, shoulders drooping a little beneath her big, white moon of a face. “That's probably for the best,” she said, and then she cupped her hand against the side of her mouth and finished in a stage whisper, “he's one 'a them _Blue Toons_.”

My eyebrows shot up high enough I might've been mistaken for a 'toon myself if someone didn't know any better. I looked to the desk, but he wasn't gonna be any use in that state, so I looked back to Betty instead. “You got dirty 'toons working this joint?”

Betty's hands went straight to her hips and I might've felt chastised if her scowl wasn't so damn cute. “He ain't _dirty_ no more,” she insisted. “I already told 'ya he's a waiter here and besides, this is a _nice_ place. _Hmmph_.”

I raised my hands in mock defense. “All right, all right, doll. Far be it from me to judge the social mores of the modern day working 'toon, but I got a murder to solve here and asking questions is the first tool in my kit. While we're at it, how about we ask a few of your indigo friend.”

She just nodded. Too tired to argue, I guess, and who could blame her?

 

We left Sam to drink his grief away in peace, and back up the hallway a couple of feet, Betty pointed out a closed dressing room on the left. A big gold star hung crooked on the door, with _Debbie Diamond_ scrolled out in rhinestone letters.

“That's where he found her,” Betty said. Then she pointed out the room straight across from it. “And Credence is in there. He's real shaken up.”

I thanked her and sent her on her way to do what a retired Talkatoon does with their time in a place like that. Couldn't be much, going from novelty to relic in the space of a couple of decades. It had to hurt.

What had to hurt even worse was the sight that greeted me on the other side of Debbie's dressing room door.

The smell of The Dip was still strong on the air, a chemical stench of turpentine and god knows what else. A splash of the stuff was still wet on the floor, eating at the checkered tile in front of the little studio couch against the back wall. It was cloudy with red paint, a bit of whatever was left of Debbie, I supposed. I stepped carefully around it, and pulled out my camera, watching I didn't get any of the mess on my wingtips.

Snapping a few quick shots, I noticed most of a red cartoon shoe about half a foot away towards the window. It was a lady's peep-toed pump, with a heel too high for any regular girl I'd ever seen before. About a third of it had dissolved away and I realized looking at it that I had no idea what a 'toon burial even entailed, if there was such a thing at all.  
The Dip itself was only about a year old, invented by some nutjob 'toon judge, or so I'd heard. Not nearly long enough for a whole new set of customs to settle into the way things are done. Had to be a funny feeling, suddenly knowing you could die when you never could before. Too bad that judge hadn't thought of the stuff sooner: we could've used it when the Karikatur Kampfabteilung had us bleeding in the trenches. The goddamn PlaToon.

There were scuff marks along the windowsill where the killer must've fled and possibly come through as well. A dirty ring below the window told me where the canister of Dip had sat the longest and how wide the circumference. I had to wonder how in the hell he'd managed to lug it through without help, assuming he was acting alone.

The rest of the room had nothing to say to me, just the usual perfume bottles and frilly baubles you'd expect from a cartoon lady star. A photo stood in its frame on the dressing table, of Debbie and Sam, laughing together in better days. She was about a head taller than her husband, blond and shapely in that way only a man could imagine when nature doesn't quite cut it good enough for him. Like I'd told Betty, I'd never heard of her, but she sure smiled like she knew she was something else. I took the picture from the frame and slipped it in the inside pocket of my trench coat.

 

Across the hall, I knocked on the unmarked door of the dressing room where the closest thing to a witness I had was waiting for me. A hushed voice answered back, telling me to come in, so I did.

The first thing I saw was legs. Miles of 'em. Credence Barebone was tall and slim, all angles and somehow soft as a kitten at the same time. He had hair that would've been black if it wasn't mostly blue, parted on the side and slicked back in little waves that might've been in fashion on a flapper girl nearly twenty years ago. Kiss curls crept out onto cheekbones sharp as a knife and I had to wonder if Fleischer was behind this one, too, just like Betty.

He was holding himself tight, arms folded and pale hands wrapped over each of his elbows. His knuckles would've been white if they weren't already drawn that way. Dark eyes tilted up like a cat's turned on me as I came into the room and for some damn reason, I took off my hat.

A Blue Toon. I'd heard them whispered about plenty, but I'd never seen one before and every part of me seemed to want to have its own say how to feel about it.  
Not that I was free to worry much about myself. Mr. Barebone was terrified.

“They tell me you found… the body,” I said.

He nodded and his big eyes started the telltale glisten of unshed tears that until then I'd never really noticed on a 'toon. There was something almost magical to it, seeing the sparkle gathering in what should have been flat ink.

“She was my friend,” he answered in a voice both soft and rough. Everything about him was some kind of contrast. “But I didn't just see _her_ tonight.”

My head snapped up and I took a step forward only to have him go skittering back away from me. “What does that mean?” I asked.

Here the sparkle spilled over and the big 'toon tears started to flow, pale blue streaks down his sad orphan boy face.

“I saw him,” he said, and it came out more like a hiccup. “I heard Debbie scream and I came to her room, and…. I caught a glimpse of him as he was leaving out the window.”

Only seconds before he'd wanted away from me. But now here he was holding the lapels of my coat and looking up at me with pleading eyes the colour of midnight. I tossed my hat onto the dressing table next to a vase of faintly singing daisies and reached out to steady him in my hands.

“Detective, it was a _'toon_ ,” he whimpered. “I didn't see his face, not fully, but he was a toon just like _me_. He knows I saw him. I'm gonna be next.”

“Now, come on,” I told him. I wrapped my arms around his shaking torso and wondered what the hell was the matter with me. “You're not gonna be next. _Nobody_ is, that's why I'm here. But if he's seen you, like you said, I think it's best you come with me.”

He looked up at me again, wiping the tears away with trembling hands. Fascinating, the way his paint didn't even run. I suddenly couldn't fathom it.

“Really?” he asked. “Can I… can I stop at my home? I've got a cat and he'll worry.”

He smiled a little and I caught myself smiling back.

“Yeah, we can stop along the way. We'll bring the cat along, too, why not? Why don't you go and let Betty know you're taking a powder and I'll meet you up at the bar?”

He smiled even bigger and nodded, still a little rattled, but the lines of him were smoothing out by the second.

 

A couple minutes later, there I was at the bar, waiting. My hat was back on my head, my camera full of photos and about a million questions all screaming for attention at once. I turned to the octopus and waved him over.

“Let's do that last one again,” I said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Character development and a touch of plot.  
> Detective Graves and Credence get to know one another a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hacienda Arms, later known as the Coronet Apartments was a fascinating place. A luxury apartment building on the Sunset Strip that housed the rich and a decent number of stars. It was the site of one of the most famous brothels in America, where a lot of stars and the simply hopeful got up to a lot of crazy business.

Credence Barebone lived in the Coronet Apartments on Sunset, and if I was surprised about that, my face sure wouldn't have told you.

We'd stayed silent for most of the drive down. Credence because he was still badly shaken, and me… I was just trying to focus on the road while that second Obliviator had other plans.  
Kid at the bar was right. It was a bad idea, and a few glances at the Valentino profile sitting next to me had me thinking bad ideas were making a big comeback.

The doorman was the usual kind, regular guy like me. It was good being back on familiar ground after the madness of the Ink and Paint Club. I tipped my hat to let him know he and I were square as we came through the door, but I can't say I much cared for the look he gave me in return. If Credence noticed anything, he didn't say so. I figured either he didn't mind or he was just used to pretending he didn't.

I kept my hand at the small of his back all the way to the elevator anyhow. Maybe the doorman and I were on the level, but my business is still my business and some people need a little reminding once in a while.

Credence was clumsy as a drunk trying to fit his key into the lock, and after everything that had happened I would've wondered if he wasn't. After letting him fumble at a few tries, I took the keys from his hands and opened the door to his place myself.

The apartment was big, well kept and quiet.

That is, quiet until a tinny meow warbled out a greeting from somewhere down the hall. I say meow, but if I hadn't known any better l might've thought it was an out of season air raid.  
I gave Credence a look that must've had him thinking I was about to reconsider because he wilted like a flower and gave a little shrug.

“That's Minx,” he said. “He used to live with Betty, but he and her dog Pudgy didn't get on too good.”

I couldn't imagine why not.

He led me to a cozy little living room with high ceilings and more than a few potted plants. A handful of framed photographs cluttered the tables, of various film stars both regular and 'toon. Above the mantelpiece, a signed portrait of Jessica Rabbit filled the wall, trying her best to steam the place up and somehow falling flat.

The source of the homecoming siren was there curled on an ottoman, tail twitching a lazy beat. A 'toon cat, black and lanky with big sleepy eyes that blinked right open when they saw me come into the room. He sat up straight, arms folded and looking like he had a few opinions in common with the doorman downstairs.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he sang, giving Credence the kind of look I had half a mind to start taking a little personal.

“Lay off, Minx,” Credence answered back.

I smirked a little at that.

“Something happened at the club tonight. Debbie's been killed and we've got to come stay with Detective Graves for a couple days until everything's all figured out.”

“And I guess ‘ _Detective_ Graves’ is the one doing the figuring, huh?”

Tell you the truth, I wasn't too sure Minx and I were fixing to get along, either.

Credence shrugged him off and started drifting around the place gathering up his belongings. I followed him around while he did it because I'm a detective, and following around seems to help with that. It also helped that I was starting to like watching him do things.

So I watched him pull out a little cartoon suitcase from the bedroom closet and start filling it with more cartoon clothes than it should've fit. I didn't look at the big four poster bed with the blue satin sheets next to the window. Didn't even notice it. Just looked at him.

“So how'd you wind up living in the ‘House of Francis?’” I asked, and he gave me a funny look while he was busy stuffing those clothes down.

I'd heard plenty of stories about the building, back when it was the Hacienda Arms and a favourite spot for movie stars and their fixers to get some kicks on the sly. No one ever said 'toons were involved, but then again nobody ever said they _weren't_. I thought about all those pictures in the living room and started wondering how many of those big spenders had been getting a few kicks with Credence back in the day. I didn't say what I was thinking, but that funny look he was giving told me I didn't have to. I was coming in loud and clear.

“I mean, wouldn't you prefer to live in Toontown?” I figured that was safe enough.

“This is closer to work,” he answered. He sat down on the lid of the suitcase and I heard it click shut. The sides were bulging and I wondered if he was thinking he might just leave town.

“The people I worked for, before the club,” he went on, “they set me up with this place. As a sort of retirement package.”

He'd been looking up at me from his perch on the suitcase, but then his eyes drifted down and away. He smoothed over the hair that didn't and never would need fixing with those long-fingered pale hands I couldn't seem to get enough of seeing.

“And who was it you used to work for?” I asked, because I wanted to know and I also didn't, which just made me want to know even more.

He shook his head. “I can't say. I signed one of those agreements that says I can't talk about it. That was part of the retirement package, too.”

“Classified, huh? I had to sign a few of those during the war.”

I reached down to take one of his hands and help him up. Credence sprang up on those long legs of his like a jack-in-the-box and half crashed into me, breathing a little heavy like he'd spooked himself just as much as me.  
He leaned his head onto my shoulder and my hand decided to revisit its favourite old haunt low on his back.

“Thank you, Detective. For helping me.”

He leaned back a little and looked into my face again with his wide glistening eyes. Suddenly I felt a little dizzy, myself. Those couple of drinks I'd had must've been trying to make every cent count.

As we were leaving, me with the suitcase and Credence with an armful of disgruntled 'toon cat, I noticed a stack of detective magazines laid out on the coffee table. When I asked about them, he told me Betty had taught him to read not too long before and he'd developed a bit of a habit.

And now here he was in a real life detective story of his own, with a real life detective and a murderer on his trail. Lucky guy.

 

I remembered not to apologize for my place when we got to it. I'd been living in a combination office/apartment since coming home from the war, but after seeing Credence's digs, it looked less like either one of those and more like a small junkyard.

To be fair, I had the feeling Credence was too awestruck seeing my name on the glass door to even notice much else. I couldn't say the same for Minx.

As soon as we got inside, the cat dropped down out of Credence's arms and set up his patrol, sniffing and padding around. I suppose I should've been worried he was angling to join the competition, seeing how he made an even better job of snooping than I did.

Credence himself simply stood, peering around helplessly. Now that we were there and the excitement had started to settle, it was looking like maybe the fear had a few things to say. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, just running his hands up over his arms in a nervous way I'd seen about a million times before.

Since I'd seen it enough, I knew what to do about it. I pulled up a chair at my desk and pointed him to it. Once he'd made his timid way across the room and sat down, I grabbed a couple glasses and what was left of the Jack Daniels I kept in my desk and poured us both a drink.

He lifted the glass and gave it a sniff I shouldn't have found adorable but did anyway. I was starting to wonder if maybe he'd been spending too much time with just the cat for company.

“Can't be anything too new to you,” I said. “Working at a bar, you and whiskey have gotta be pretty cozy.”

“I've been around it lots, but I've never actually had any before.” He was tilting the glass in his hand, watching the amber liquid swirl while I tried my best not to stare. “I guess it's not really a 'toon thing.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” I shook my head. “Well, first time for everything. Bottoms up.”

I tossed it back and watched him do the same. At first, he seemed normal enough. Didn't even grimace. Then, he started to shake. A slow tremor came up through him starting at his feet and pretty soon the chair was rattling against the floor like the fault lines were opening up.

Over in the corner, Minx puffed up into nothing but spikes and hissed.

I got up from my chair and reached out to help, but by then Credence's face had changed from pale to navy blue in a couple of seconds. He turned to me with eyes gone completely white and I figured I'd just discovered a new way to kill a 'toon. Then he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something and instead of sound, a stream of black smoke came pouring out of it into the room. I'd never seen anything like it, but then again, I'd never seen anything like Credence himself.  
A high pitched whine started filling the air along with the smoke and before I knew it, Credence Barebone had burst into a great black howling cloud.

I couldn't do anything but stand there like a chump and watch while the churning mass that might've still been Credence made a couple quick circuits around the apartment.  
I was no stranger to the way drink could tend to change a guy. Even then, it was hard to place the storm cloud clinging to my ceiling as the same demure boy who'd just been delicately sniffing over a cut crystal tumblr.

“Hey now, everything's all right,” I said, and to hear me I might've been coaxing the cat out from under a chair. “Come on down, now.”

I figured he must've been able to hear me. Before long, he was spilling like a bloom of ink in water, back into the chair and eventually into the shape I was starting to like.

If I'd thought he seemed shook up before, now I really had something on my hands. He was trembling fit to burst at the seams all over again but instead he just smiled like he was a little embarrassed.

“I guess _that's_ why we don't drink,” he said.

I had to laugh. If that's the kind of surprise he could smile and shake off, I guessed the both of us might come out of this whole thing in one piece.

“Hell, I guess not,” I said.

 

I hadn't apologized for my apartment, but when I saw the time and decided it was best we hit the hay, I had to apologize about the accommodations. Like a lot of the buildings in my part of town, there was just the one Murphy bed. When I'd asked him to come along, I hadn't thought of that.

When I tried to tell Credence I'd be happy to sleep on the floor, he insisted against it strongly enough I had to wonder if he _had_ thought of it. He sure seemed to have his arguments all lined up and ready. Either way, he won the round, maybe because I was just too tired and sore to argue.

I pointed out the latrine and he went inside with his suitcase to freshen up while I pulled out the bed. I stretched out with my arms behind my head, stripped down to my boxers and undershirt and hoping the whole time he wouldn't be too offended.  
It had been a while since I'd had to think about sharing a bed with someone, even in theory. I knew there were rules about this sort of thing and I found myself needing to refresh my memory on just what they were.

From over on the desk, Minx's eyes glowed like a set of headlights in the dark. I never knew there was such a thing as hearing a cat purr in a sarcastic tone, but I was learning a lot that evening.

“He's sweet on you already,” he crooned, and it was the first thing he'd actually said to me directly so far. Before I could ask just what the hell he was getting at, the door to the latrine opened up.

The door opened up, and Credence stepped right out, wearing something that might've been nothing and looking more angel than 'toon.

The purring from over on the desk turned smug and I heard the soft thump as the cat dropped to the floor and made off for some little corner or other.

Behind him, the light shone through the sheer little number Credence barely had on, and all I could see was the long, slender silhouette of him beneath it. More x-ray than dressing gown, but whatever it was had no business being called something as innocent as clothes.

I could feel my eyebrows taking up new real estate closer to my hairline and I was glad for it when he reached behind him and shut the light. Even as I watched the shape of him move across the room towards the bed, I could've sworn I heard the sound of a faint jazz saxophone playing somewhere near. I couldn't tell if it was real or some kind of 'toon trick, but the soft dip in the mattress as he lay down next to me was real enough.

I rolled over with my back to him. Maybe I wasn't going to be getting much shut-eye, but I sure wasn't going to spend the night looking at him in that get up. At least this way, sleep had a fighting chance.

“You warm enough?” I asked.

Whether or not he caught my drift, he shifted a little and I could tell he was nodding. “Mhmm.”

Somehow I managed to nod off anyhow. Last thing I saw were those yellow headlamp eyes, going narrow in the gloom. Damn cat was chuckling to himself.

 

Sometime during the night, I woke up shouting. I'm not proud about it, but it happens sometimes.

I sat up in the dark, breathing hard and mortar shells still screaming in my ears. Dreaming about the PlaToon again.

At first, I didn't know where I was, which is no real surprise. Then there was a cool hand against the back of my neck, and that _was_ a surprise.

I turned my head and there was Credence, luminous as a phantom next to me in the sheets, his big eyes dark and worried.

“Was it… the war?” he asked softly, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to say it.

“Yeah.” I nodded and laid back down. “It always is some kinda war, isn't it?”

“I didn't fight,” he said, and I could've guessed as much. “But I was there a few times, in Europe.” Here he shrugged in a way I was starting to recognize and his voice went down to a hush. “Entertaining the troops.”

“Aw, doll…”

I didn't know what to say. It really is some kinda war, no matter what uniform they put you in.

Credence turned to me and the worry in his eyes had turned into something more like pleading.

“It's like Jessica used to say,” he told me. “I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.”

“You really admire her, don't you?” I asked.

He nodded and went a little wistful. “Oh yeah, she's swell. We worked together at the club, for a little while. She taught me all kinds of stuff.”  
His hands went to his hair again, fingers tracing a swirl over the little kiss curl in front of his ear. “She's just so modern, and… and colourful.”

I don't know if it was the lateness of the hour or something about the way the light came through the blinds across his sculpted face, but suddenly it struck me that whoever made Credence, he must've been a real artist. Next to him, a guy like me was nothing more than a happy accident.

But Credence, somebody'd thought him up for ages, most likely. Wanted him to exist and poured that wanting into every single line. Once upon a time, somebody had seen the lack of him in the world and decided to correct the oversight.

Looking at him, I was starting to want a few things, myself.

“I'm scared, Detective,” he whispered into the dark and I put my arms around him and laid his head against my chest.

After a minute I caught a smile creeping onto his face like it was coming out from hiding.

“You called me _doll_ ,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess I went and did.”

 

Around four o'clock in the morning, the phone rang. I pulled myself out from under Credence's arm and stumbled over to the desk to stop its squawking. It was Betty.

“Somebody shot Sam last night,” she said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEX 
> 
> A quick note: the phrase "ten and two" refers to clock position. The arms of the clock point at 10 and 2, which results in a V shape. 
> 
> The .45 Graves carries is an M1911 or "Colt Government." A standard-issue sidearm for the U.S. Army during WWII.
> 
>  
> 
> [Suggested mood music](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RbpFq4EP9V8&feature=youtu.be)

“Shot him?” I asked. “With a gun? Like a regular gun, I mean.” 

“Yeah, Detective, with a _gun_ ,” Betty answered, and beneath the sass I could still hear the strain. 

“And that's not all,” she continued, “the cops was here. The _regular_ cops, before you go and ask. They say it was Credence what did the murders. They're saying they searched his place and found a bunch 'a _Dip_.” 

Her worried little voice squeaked the last word out on a high note and I gripped the phone like I thought I might strangle a few answers out of it. Credence? How in the hell did L.A.'s finest get turned so far sideways? None of it made any sense and I didn't like it one bit. 

“I didn't tell 'em Credence was with you,” Betty said. “But I don't know how much that helps, because now they think he's gone and skipped town.” 

“Don't sweat it, Betty. You did the right thing. As far as I know, the killer, assuming there's only the one, doesn't know Sam hired me and neither do the cops. That leaves me free to get to the bottom of this without anybody getting in my way. Just how I like it. And I _will_ get to the bottom of it, don't you worry about that.” 

I hung up the phone and turned to Credence. He was sat up in the bed, watching me with terrified eyes. His hand went to the neckline of his dressing gown to hold it shut and tremble there. 

“Somebody's been shot?” he asked in a small voice full of hurt. 

I nodded and told him it was Sam, and he started to cry. Then I told him what Betty had said to me about the fuzz and he _really_ started to cry. I don't know if you've ever seen a 'toon cry before, but we're talking real water works here. 

I came around to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. His shoulders were shaking and he had his hands over his face, big ‘toon tears spraying out either side of them. He was really bawling. 

I reached out to rub his shoulder and that filmy dressing gown slid around underneath my hand like a gentle sigh. It felt nice, so I put my arm around his shoulders to comfort him and let him cry into my chest. He held onto me, wailing and shaking and wetting the front of my undershirt and I couldn't have cared less. I was too busy enjoying the warm weight of him in my arms. 

After about a minute, he pulled back, wiping at his eyes before gripping me tight with both hands. He looked up into my face with his eyes enormous and his sad eyebrows twisting up like a lost puppy's. 

“I'm so scared, Detective,” he cried. “I don't know what I'm gonna do! They're gonna find me, or, or… the killer will first, but either way I'm gonna get The Dip and then--” 

He was turning hysterical so I grabbed him and pulled him close and I said to him: “Now let's get one thing straight. Ain't _nobody_ giving you The Dip, not while I'm around. I don't care if it's cops or killers or both. They can come and try it, and if they do they'll have to come through me. You got that?” 

He nodded, looking a little stunned with his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. Then he tucked his head down under my chin and clung to me. I didn't mind that one bit. We sat there a minute, me just hushing him softly and him letting himself be hushed. 

The dressing gown had slipped from his shoulder in all the fuss, not that it was doing much where it had been. His skin was soft and smooth as the satin sheets on that big bed of his I wasn't thinking of. I wasn't thinking about it so hard, the rest of me started taking an interest. _All_ the rest of me. 

It was only a second or two before I heard him give a little gasp and he lifted his head to look up at me. High on his cheeks was a soft blue that hadn't been there before, struck through with shivery pencil strokes as if I'd caught him only halfway sketched. I thought of the whiskey and started to brace myself for what was coming next until it struck me: he was _blushing_. 

“I never saw somebody blush in black and white,” I told him. 

He ducked his head and there was that shrug again. “I know I'm not like those colour 'toons,” he said, with an apologetic tone I wasn't in any mood to stand for. 

I put my finger beneath his chin and lifted his face to mine. “Who needs all that colour, anyway?” I asked. “Gives me a damn headache.” 

The blush got deeper, a watercolour flush across his cheekbones bright as sapphire and I leaned in and kissed him. I kissed him slow and deep and I made it count. 

Sooner than I'd like, he came up for air, starry eyed and breathless. “What'd you do that for?” he asked and he sounded like I'd gone and kissed the voice right out of him. 

“Had to know if those lips are as soft as the rest of you,” I said. 

Here he looked even more flustered. “But… you're so handsome and brave and strong,” he told me. “You could have anyone you wanted.” 

“Sure I could, doll. That's why I'm gonna kiss you again.” 

I looked into his eyes and there were honest-to-god hearts trembling in the depths of them. 

“Please,” he breathed, shuddering against me. “If you don't, I might just go crazy.” 

So I set to kissing him like I was drowning and he was the last breath of air on earth. I pulled him to me tight as I could and he moaned into my mouth and the sound went through me quick as a match to a fuse. 

“You really want me?” he gasped. I could feel his voice vibrate against my lips where I had them busy at his throat. 

“Baby, I don't want anything _but_ you.” 

I laid him out on the bed just to enjoy having him panting up at me, looking like sin incarnate. He whimpered under my hands as I undid his flimsy suggestion of a robe and slid it off him to pool in a heap on the floor. 

Seeing him finally bare, hard and wanting, I whistled low. “They sure don't skimp on the ink,” I said. If he were a regular guy and not a 'toon, I'd have maybe felt a little inadequate just then. “Where you been hiding all that?” I asked. 

He giggled a little and maybe even started to answer, but the sound choked off when I got right down on my knees and put my mouth to him. Then it was nothing but gasps. 

Even knowing he was made to be the way he was, I'd never seen a more perfect cock. I'd never seen a more perfect _anything_ than Credence.  
I swiped my tongue up his length and it was hot and slick and tasted of candy. I'd never even heard of that and so I looked up and told him so in between hungry licks. 

“Isn't… isn't that why they call me a fruit?” he panted back. 

I figured if he could still make words I wasn't doing my job. His slim hips were tight in my grip and I let him thrust up into my mouth, drooling sugar sweetness on my tongue until he was wailing incoherent with it. 

I could feel his hands on my head, petting and tugging at my hair like he couldn't make up his mind what to do with them. He whimpered and shook as I swallowed him down and soon enough he was begging as if I was holding onto his life instead of his cock. 

“Oh, _please_ , Detective!” he cried. He sounded close to tears again and I wouldn't have complained if he was. “Oh, I _wa-aaaant_ you.” 

“Where do you want me, doll? Inside? Is that what you need?”

His nod was so enthusiastic I might've laughed then if I wasn't so turned on it was getting near to an emergency. 

I pushed my boxers down and kicked them away. Then for a moment or two it was one hand on myself and the other between his legs just doing a little reconnaissance. Turns out I didn't need it. He was good and ready. 'Toons, god love 'em. 

Credence was just about desperate, panting and crying and gripping at the sheets, little cartoon puffs of steam floating away from his face to dissolve on the air. It wasn't any skin off my nose to take mercy on him then. 

I grabbed his ankles and pulled those long legs up against me at ten and two to slide myself inside and he _wailed_. The slippery heat of him around me was like tight silk and I knew right then whoever _had_ made him, they'd gone and made him just for _me_. 

“Oh Credence, oh baby… oh, _god_ ,” I groaned and he just whimpered back at me. 

The Murphy bed was thumping and creaking like it was angry about something and I didn't give a damn. I was busy giving him the business and what a business it was, too. The sounds I was getting out of him, well if somebody'd canned those and put them on the market they'd have made a million bucks. Hell, somebody probably already _had_ and I didn't give a damn about that, either. He was singing just for me now. 

“ _Ohhh_ Detective, oh it's so good, _so_ good,” he was crying, grabbing at the undershirt I'd clean forgotten to take off in the hurry. Sounds weren't the only thing I was getting out of him, then. Little hearts started sailing up into the air along with the steam and his voice was taking on a high note with shades of Betty to it. “Oh, _oh Detecti-iiiive_ I'm gonna--” 

“You're gonna what, baby?” 

One of the hearts burst with a tiny 'pop’ and a little cherub came fluttering out, bow and arrow at the ready. 

“Who's this?” I asked, hunched over him and panting in between wet kisses. I gave him a good thrust and then another and watched his eyes turn big and round on me. “Let's see if we can't give him a few friends, huh?” 

There was that jazz saxophone again, only this time I knew it wasn't my imagination. I didn't _need_ to imagine, not with somebody as real as Credence squealing underneath me as loud as those bedsprings. 

Next thing I knew the hearts were bursting like balloons and a whole chorus of cupids were out on the loose. And they weren't the only thing about to burst. That big, beautiful cock of his gave a throb, spurting out all the way up his chest. Seeing that just about did me in. I grabbed him tight and came with a shout of his name and he was still just winding down when I was done. 

If the killer on the loose didn't get me, Credence was fixing to do the job himself. 

We lay there breathing a while, just holding onto each other. I pressed my lips a few times against the rise and fall of his chest, catching a bit of his spend as I went. Cotton candy. God damn, what a marvel. 

 

Unfortunately for the both of us, I still had a case to solve. I got up from the bed against Credence's murmured protests and for a minute I just stood there half dressed, admiring the beautiful mess I'd made of him. He was dazed and dreamy and just about the most gorgeous thing I'd ever laid eyes on. And he was mine, if I was going to have any say about it. 

I kissed him again and then I did it once more just to make sure it took. He smiled at me and I decided we were both gonna get used to seeing more of that. Just as soon as I dealt with this murder business. 

I hit the latrine for a quick shave and shower and when I came back out, Credence was fully dressed in his usual dark suit and vest. Minx had returned through the window from his evening prowl and was happily batting away at the last few cherubs still circling the air over the bed.  
A touch of worry was making its way back onto Credence's face so I pulled him close and did my best to kiss it away again. 

Credence helped me on with my tie, giving me another chance to smile at him all dopey-eyed while he did it. A little frown drew itself up between his brows as he concentrated on getting the knot just right. I'm no sap, but I could feel a lump forming in my throat as I watched him. Just seeing those long lashes dusting his cheeks, the care he took putting me together after taking me apart so good I was still glowing… 

I didn't know how I'd been getting on without him. Not ever. And there was no chance anyone was taking that away from me now. From the both of us. Hell, not even from the damn stupid cat. 

He watched me shrug into my shoulder holster, that frown getting deeper as I strapped on the .45. The whole time he hadn't said anything, but when I got into my coat and reached for the keys to his apartment, he finally spoke up. 

“He's a 'toon, Detective. The gun won't help. I--” 

“I think maybe you oughta call me Percy, now,” I told him. “I fought 'toons in the war and I survived them. I'll survive this one, too, and so will you.” 

He nodded quietly. I could see him trying to be brave and I knew he'd been doing it since the day he was inked. And now he was doing it for me. 

“I'm coming right back to you,” I said. “Don't you answer that door or that phone for anyone, no matter who they say they are.” 

“I won't, Percy.” 

I could've kissed him again, but I had to go. If I'd started up on that, we'd have been back in that bed in no time. After he'd gone and done such a nice job on my tie, I guess I just couldn't allow that. 

 

When I got to his place and took a look around, it was clear the cops had been there, all right. Looked more like a small tornado had touched down than any kind of police work I'd seen before. Guess they don't care much about somebody's things when that somebody is a 'toon, and one wanted for murder, at that. I thought about what if Credence had been there the night before instead of with me and had to stop myself. I couldn't go getting soft on it, not when I had to stay sharp. 

The smell of The Dip was still strong on the air. Whether it was the killer or the cops themselves, they'd made a real occasion out of spreading it around. A frame-up job if I'd ever seen one, and I'd seen too many. 

I'd almost left the apartment when I saw it. The Dip had burned a stain into the kitchen tile and right close to it, someone had left a matchbook. Left it there wanting it to be found. 

I picked it up and flipped it over. Printed on the front in big red letters was the name of a hotel bar I'd heard of plenty. Ring Around the Rosie. 

Damn it all to hell. I was going to have to go down into Toontown.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The tooter the sweeter" is a slang phrase coined during WWI. It comes from the French "tout de suite" meaning "immediately" and was anglicized into the slang term here meaning "the sooner the better."

After I'd been to Credence's apartment, I made my way down to the Ink and Paint Club. The place was strange during the day, without all that noise and people carrying on. Eerie in that way empty places can be when they ain't supposed to be empty. Almost felt like I was seeing something I wasn't meant to. 

Betty let me in, since she was the only one around and I'd called ahead to tell her I was coming. She showed me the office where Sam had been killed and I could only hope he'd been drunk enough not to feel much at the time. 

There was a bullet hole through the desk chair, but the bullet itself had already been taken away by the police. I supposed with all the music and laughter, nobody had heard much. Betty had been the one to find him, and she was a wreck over it, too. Seeing her staring at that empty chair, dabbing her eyes with a lacy cartoon hanky, I had a hunch she'd maybe envied Debbie Diamond for more than just the star on her dressing room door. 

When I asked after the police and their big idea about Credence, she said that someone had apparently tipped them off to check his place out. That sit pretty well with the matchbook I'd found. Someone was trying hard to get Credence out of the way, and they were doing it badly. That someone was gonna fail. 

By then, I was itching bad to get back home to him. 

 

When I opened the door to my place, Credence was there sitting at the desk. He jumped up when he saw me and looked on the verge of coming over before he stopped himself and sat back down again.  
“You're here,” he said, as if he'd thought maybe I wasn't gonna come back. The cat was curled up on the bed, which Credence had been good enough to make for me after I'd left both it and _him_ a mess. 

“Yeah, of course I'm here. I told you, didn't I?” 

I hung up my coat and crossed the room, tossing the matchbook onto the desk for him to see. “I'm sorry,” I said, “but the police really tore up your place. We'll make 'em pay for it all after we get you cleared, don't worry.” 

He nodded as if the news didn't surprise him much and picked up the matchbook to examine it. I didn't know if it was nerves or the shock of everything that had happened, but he was acting awful funny. 

“I know this place,” he told me. 

“Yeah, I've heard of it too, but I've never been there myself. Toontown. Whoever it is that's behind all this business, they left that at your apartment. And they wanted it to be found. Which means I'm gonna have to go there.” 

When he heard that, Credence stood back up again. “If you're going to Toontown, I'm coming with you,” he announced.

“Now hey, hang on a minute. Not a chance, doll.” 

He just shook his head and came around the desk with that same look he'd gotten the night before when I'd suggested sleeping on the floor. I was starting to learn that Credence could be very convincing when he needed to be. And in this instance, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to be convinced. 

“Listen,” he said. “Toontown is a whole other world. The way everything works there is different and you're gonna need a 'toon with you one way or the other.” 

“Then I'll get some other 'toon,” I told him. “Hell, even Minx will do if it's just a matter of showing me the ropes.” 

He pointed down to the matchbook. “Whoever left that left it there for _me_ to find. And it's me they'll be expecting. Who knows what kind of trap they might be planning? I can help you, it's safer if there's two of us and if need be, I can act as... a sort of bait.” 

Just the thought of it was getting me steamed enough I could've cursed. “Now you're just talking crazy,” I said. 

He carried on as if he hadn't even heard me. “I know a cab, a 'toon, who can take us there, and--” 

Suddenly he cut himself off and turned away from me with his arms around himself that same way he'd been when I first laid eyes on him in the dressing room at the club. 

“I can take another cab there,” he said quietly. “If you'd rather, I mean… we could go separately and then no one would see us together.” 

Something was falling into place and I didn't know what it was but I _did_ know I sure didn't like it. I stepped around to make him face me again and that was when it dawned on me he'd been cagey about looking me in the eye since I'd come home. “Are you saying this because you're a suspect?” I asked. 

He shrugged that little shrug of his. “Well, that too,” he answered. 

Credence was really starting to worry me, and I'm not the worrying kind. “ _That too_ in addition to what?” 

Finally he looked up and there was something there I'd never seen before, a kind of hurt or maybe fear or maybe both. 

“I just want you to know I understand,” he said. “If you can't afford to be seen with me, or--” 

I couldn't hear the rest of what he said over the sound of the other shoe dropping. I reached out and I grabbed him with both hands and for a second he looked scared and I hated myself. I hated myself for not kissing him senseless the second I stepped through that door and I promised myself then and there I'd never repeat the mistake again. 

“Listen up, doll,” I said. “I don't give a damn what anyone thinks, not _one damn_. I'll be seen with you anyplace I like and if somebody’s got a problem with it, they can piss up a rope.” 

He looked as if he wanted to say something but he was gonna have to say it right into my mouth because I kissed him. I kissed him good, until I’d kissed those ugly, silly thoughts right out of his crazy 'toon head. 

When I pulled back to get a look at his face and see what he was thinking, he looked dazed. And I could tell for sure because his eyes were full of little stars. A whole constellation of 'em. “You mean… you're gonna want me again?” he asked. 

“Again?” 

Let me tell you, whoever it was that had gotten him so skittish, no matter how long the line, I was gonna deal with them one by one if I had to. 

“Doll, I'm gonna want you every goddamn minute, you got that? Don't we have something here? Something good?” 

He just stared at me with those starry eyes like he didn't even know his own name, so I kept going. 

“I'm not on this case for the money, baby. Not anymore. Hell, I don't care if I never get paid for this one. I'm in this to keep you safe and keep you here with _me_. Now if you've got any other ideas, you'd best let me know about them right here and now.” 

Suddenly, I could feel something press against my chest and for a second I thought it might be his hand to push me away. I looked down and there it was: his heart, beating right out underneath his vest as if it wanted out of him and straight into me instead. 

Without looking away from my face he reached up and pressed it, still thumping away, back into himself. I knew then he couldn't hide the way he felt from me even if he tried. Come to think of it, I couldn't do much hiding of my own. And what's more, I didn't want to. 

Next thing I knew, his arms were around me and his mouth on mine and I was the one being kissed breathless. 

“I was so worried,” he said. “I thought... I thought maybe--” 

“I know what you were thinking and you can go ahead and unthink it. The tooter the sweeter.” 

“Percy, _please_ …” he breathed. 

That mouth didn't need any words to beg me. Every single part of him had been begging since he laid beside me in the dark wearing next to nothing. Since then, he'd started something I was gonna see through to the finish, even if it killed me. 

I caught his lush bottom lip gently between my teeth and felt him shudder. He might know a cab we could take into Toontown, but I figured we didn't need to be there until sundown anyhow. 

I reached behind me and jimmied the window. Then I looked over to that nicely made bed I had plans to unmake and told Minx to scram for a while. He stomped off with his tail waving and his nose in the air, but I was sure I caught a glimpse of something sly happening on his face as he slipped away. See, even the cat knew we had something good going. 

“What do you want, huh?” I whispered into the ear I was nibbling on. 

“ _Yo-uuuu_ ,” he moaned, drawing it out long and sweet. The sound of it had me hard enough it nearly hurt. 

“Where, baby? Where do you want me?” 

He was already leading me to the bed, backward steps across the room with his mouth locked on mine. I went with a smile against his lips. 

I thought I'd lay him out like I had that morning, but Credence had other ideas in mind. I felt the bed hit the back of my legs and he pressed me down gently. I was more than happy to oblige him, so I lay back and watched him make short work of undoing my trousers. He had that same little frown of concentration he'd had doing up my tie earlier and something about that had me already nearly out of my mind. Letting myself be dressed and undressed by Credence Barebone was becoming a favourite pastime of mine. 

As soon as I'd shrugged out of my suspenders he was pulling my trousers down to the floor where he crouched between my legs, and I groaned. I groaned just knowing what he was gonna do and how badly he seemed to want to do it. 

His breath was warm against me through my boxers as he slid them off, those little cartoon puffs of steam floating on the air. Already he had me leaking like a faucet and he hadn't even touched me. He locked eyes with me, sliding his lips and his tongue up the length of my cock and I gripped the sheets in both fists. 

“Yeah, baby… oh, _god yeah_.” 

I was panting so hard you'd think I'd ran all the way home from the club. 

His mouth was hot and wet and velvet soft when he wrapped his lips around me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I whimpered, and there he was moaning right back as if it felt just as good on his end, too. For all I knew, it did. 'Toons have their own rules and Credence, especially. Credence was from a whole other universe all his own and I never wanted to leave it. 

I reached out and laid my hand over the back of his neck, cradling his head and petting those soft little curls while he worked me over. He was loving me hard and tender all at once, expert little licks and swirls that had me sweating and pleading in no time. 

I warned him how close I was and he pulled back just slow enough to have me almost begging him not to stop after all. 

When he stood up and started to peel out of his clothes, he did that slow, too. He took each piece off one at a time and if a freight train had come crashing through my window, I still wouldn't have looked away. He knew it and I knew it and that's just how he wanted it. Credence meant for me to see him. To see him and know that he was mine and I was his. 

And I'd never seen anything so perfect. Every long, clean line of him, all for me. 

Once he was naked just the way I like him, he climbed up onto me, one leg on either side of my hips. He started to undo my shirt and I pulled him down for a kiss while he did it. That gorgeous, ridiculous cock of his was sliding wet and heavy against my stomach so I wrapped my hand around it just to hear the sounds he'd make into my mouth. I wasn't disappointed. 

In the end, he gave up on my shirt, unbuttoning to my neck before pushing it all up out of his way to mouth at my chest. His cock was pushing slick and noisy in and out of my fist between us and already he was starting to shake. 

I didn't think either of us was gonna last much longer when he sat up and reached behind himself to grab onto me and line me up. Then he sank himself right down in one smooth push and for a second I worried I might black out on him, it was so damn good. It took everything I had then not to just grab a hold and drive it home. This was Credence's show. He was calling the shots on this one. 

And didn't he know it. He was looking down at me, slowly rocking himself back and forth, getting it deep and keeping his eyes on my face the whole time. Gorgeous. I felt bad for every guy who's never seen something like that. 

“That’s it baby,” I told him, “take what you need. It's just for you. Every inch. Every drop.” 

Those must've been the magic words because then he moaned my name and started to ride like he had someplace to get to. He grabbed a hold of my tie, the tie he'd done up so nice and neat and if he'd told me to bark like a dog for him then, I'd have asked him how loud. 

He didn't say anything at all. Just moaned and shivered, grinding and rocking onto me and dragging us both closer and closer to the edge. The space above his head started filling up all hazy white and at first I figured it was more of that steam, but then…. words started to form. Perfect little black letters straight out of the comic books, right there on the air. A goddamn thought bubble. When I read what it said, there was no hope of either of us holding out anymore: FUCK ME FUCK ME OH GOD PERCY YES FUCK ME 

I came so hard, I saw stars. Just like a 'toon. 

Credence was there about a second behind me, six heavy ropes of sticky candy over my chest and all the way up onto my mouth and chin. Maybe I wasn't barking for him, not yet. But just like a dog, I licked it off and nothing ever tasted better. I was starting to get a real sweet tooth.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credence gets a bright idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's got notes at both beginning and end because I don't want to hit anybody with a spoiler. 
> 
> "Cheaters" is an old slang term for eyeglasses. 
> 
> Cole's Pacific Electric Buffet is a historic dinner and bar in downtown L.A. It was housed on the ground floor of the Pacific Electric building, the main terminal for the Pacific Electric Railway. It was known for laying claim to the creation of the French Dip sandwich.
> 
> Bugs Bunny was created by Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became Warner Brothers Cartoons. Bugs was very important to the U.S. military during WWII, and also very important to me for reasons illustrated in the end notes.  
> Bugs Bunny was made an honorary Marine Corps Master Sergeant after 1943. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Highly recommended music for the final scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R17t65gL-ZU)

Speaking of sweet tooth, I could've laid there all day with Credence just basking in it if it weren't for my damn stomach. 

We were both stretched out still panting when it started to growl between us. He looked down and smiled a little. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked. 

“I'd say it was because you worked up my appetite, but you're right. Last I ate must've been around this time yesterday.” 

“Percy!” Here he looked downright scandalized, a funny thing, considering he'd just been riding me like a jockey and thinking dirty curse words all over the place. “You need food!” 

My stomach decided just then to pipe up right along with him. Fine with me, I wasn't about to argue, either. 

“How about this?” I asked. “I'm gonna get in that shower for the second time today, and I'm gonna bring you with me. Then I'm gonna go out and grab some chow and I'm gonna bring you with me there, too. Because right about now you're the best thing I've seen and I don't want to let you out of my sight.” 

His smile grew a little wider and then a little more coy. “And then later? In Toontown?"

Credence was turning out to be as relentless as he was insatiable. I still didn't like the idea and I told him so. In the end we settled on the old “we'll talk about it” and left it at that for the time being. 

Then I caught him up into my arms and carried him, giggling, all the way to the shower.

I'd never seen Credence wet before. I'd never seen him all kinds of ways, having known him shy of a full day, but I was beginning to make a list. Wet was a nice start and soon enough, I’d decided it would keep a special spot at the top of that list until further notice. 

Underneath the shower, the water moved smooth over his pale skin, and that blue blush crept up into his face again to see just how much I was enjoying the effect. Even though he didn't need it, I soaped him up for an easy excuse to keep my hands on him. Wasn't long before my hand was on us both, pressed together in my fist, sliding hot and slippery. I was halfway to convincing myself that the only way to keep Credence safe was to never leave the apartment again. 

He didn't need any cartoon magic to have me gaping in awe. The sound of his groans echoing off the bathroom tile, the water shearing over the long stretch of his throat underneath my tongue… every little detail of him was a bonafide miracle. Maybe it was never the artist's intention-- they were only drawing up a quick bit of pornography for a few thrills. I didn't know the artist's thinking behind it all and I didn't care. I was wise enough to the ways of the world I didn't have to imagine it too hard. But Credence, he was more than anything anybody could've planned, all on his own. More than anything I'd ever expected or even wanted for myself until then. But goddamn it if I wasn't gonna hold right onto him. 

So I did hold onto him. In the shower up against the steam-slicked tiles, then wrapped together under the same towel, and then wrapped up in each other on the half-made bed. By the time we'd finally made it back into our clothes, my stomach was complaining louder than Minx. 

There was still a shadow of that uncertainty hanging around Credence as we left the apartment. I'd done my damndest to reassure him, but being holed up alone together and going out into the great big world are two very different things. It occurred to me that if he was some sort of curiosity even inside a place like the Ink and Paint Club, enough that Betty herself couldn't speak about it without blushing, how much worse was it for him in a lunch car at noon? I had a hunch with Credence on my arm, I'd be getting into more than a few dust-ups. Not that I'd ever had trouble setting anybody straight before I met him. Might do Credence a bit of good, come to think of it, seeing a guy throw a few fists on his behalf. 

 

The day was shaping up to be a fine one, with the sun doing its job and a cheerful spring in the step of nearly every passerby. On a day like that, you could almost forget there was a murderer at large. 

You could almost forget it, and I was halfway to doing just that for the moment until we settled into a booth at Cole's and I ordered a coffee and the french _dip_. The waitress gave a nod, working harder at not looking at Credence than she was taking my order, but as soon as the words hit the air, he shrunk into himself a little. He was already on edge what with all the staring going on as we walked in, and I could've kicked myself. 

“Hey now," I said, and I put my hand over his on the table top, shooting a glare at the nearest gawker for good measure. “Let 'em get an eye full, and if they've got something to say about it, they're gonna be leaving with both eyes black.” 

He gave my hand a little squeeze, and a shy smile I was starting to suspect I had the sole rights to edged its way back onto his face. 

“Don't you worry about Dip, either," I told him. "It ain't gonna happen, not to you.” 

The place was cool and dim, and we'd picked a cozy little red booth perfect for gazing across at each other in relative privacy like a couple of lovestruck dopes. Even still, I could feel the eyes of every Tom, Dick and Harry in the joint clocking us like we were the hottest scoop in this week's Daily News. Hardly an ideal situation for a private sleuth. 

Normally, I'd prefer a quiet place, but this was a whole different kind of quiet and suddenly the little corner that had looked so inviting was starting to feel a bit too close. I found myself wishing for the bustle and sound of the Ink and Paint Club, but more than the noise, I was missing the company of all those 'toons. Even at the club, somebody like Credence was noteworthy, but around regular folks he stuck out like a sore thumb. And he was feeling it. So now I was, too. I figured the best way to distract us both would be to get a few things sorted out. 

“Now, you said last night this guy you saw was a 'toon. The one we're looking for.” 

He nodded slowly and looked thoughtful. It was a good look on him. "Yeah. He was halfway out the window by the time I saw him. He was pale and blonde and, well he was wearing regular people clothes, dark ones. But his face was definitely 'toon. A _person_ 'toon, like me. He had cheaters on, too, dark like his clothes.” 

I chewed on that for a moment along with my lunch. I couldn't imagine what sort of advantage a ‘toon could be angling for, killing Debbie and then Sam all in the same night. I didn't figure it was money, and from the sounds of what Betty had told me earlier that day, it was unlikely Debbie was the type to be stepping out. Whatever it was, the idea was to find out and that's just what I was gonna do. If all went well in Toontown, I'd be getting it straight from the horse's mouth. 

After a minute or two, Credence started in again on coming with me. 

“I'll be safe," he said, “if I'm with you. Besides, I'm a capable enough young man and I want to know what this guy's beef is with me just as badly as you do.” 

He said _capable young man_ as if he'd read it someplace and been saving it up to use ever since. Even still, he had me there. If anything, he was capable of talking his way around things, I'd give him that much. But talking wasn't gonna do the trick when it came to the crunch and I knew I'd never forgive myself if anything were to happen to him. 

By then I'd finished eating. I dropped my napkin on the plate and set the money on the table without any tip. The waitress could figure the reason why all on her own, I imagined. Then, I plucked the pink carnation out of the little vase between us and slipped it behind Credence's ear to make him smile. 

Instead of a smile, his eyes popped wide and a cartoon light bulb flickered on above his head. For a second he stared at me with his mouth hanging open, looking about as stunned as everyone else in the place. 

“What is it, baby?" I asked him. 

“I think… I think I might know the way," he said. 

"Well, go ahead and spit it out before you blind somebody." 

I'd been angling for a smile and ended up with a grin. I'd never seen him do _that_ before. The light bulb had nothing on it. 

"It's best if I just show you," he told me. "Back at the apartment.” 

 

Soon enough, we were inside my place and just as he'd said, instead of talking, Credence grabbed his suitcase and made for the latrine. 

“What gives, doll?" 

“Just… you'll see," he said, and disappeared behind the door. 

By now I'd seen him naked plenty and couldn't imagine what the big surprise was all about, but the last time he'd gone to powder his nose in there he'd come out fixing to give me palpitations. I had a feeling whatever it was, this time I might just faint. 

I sat down at the desk and waited. Minx had returned, curled up on the bed watching me with half-closed eyes. He blinked a few times and then nodded his head towards the door Credence had just disappeared behind. 

“Am I gonna have to take another hike?" he asked. 

"If you did,” I said, " it won't be for _that_ , but I still wouldn't complain.” 

"The two 'a yous have been carryin’ on like it's mating season.”

Here he closed his eyes and tucked his head beneath his tail, having said what he needed to say. Either way, I wasn't in a position to disagree with him much. 

The note pad next to the phone had seen some recent use, I noticed, but whatever it was, the top sheet had already been torn away. Frowning, I glanced to the latrine, then the cat, and back down to the desk. What can I say, I wouldn't be much of a detective if I didn't get curious now and then. 

I picked up the pencil, laid the lead flat sideways against the page and started to scribble it back and forth. I'm not ashamed to admit that a touch of apprehension was beginning to percolate, thinking about what kind of calls Credence might've been making while I'd been away. Trust is a hard thing to come by, and it goes both ways, as they say. 

If I'd been worried at the start of the operation, then I didn't know just what to feel when I finished covering the page. The relief that came over me like a punch to the gut had me concerned in a whole new kinda way. Mainly on account of how good that relief really was. I had to ask myself how much I was banking on this whole thing, and discovering I wasn't alone in that only doubled down on the feeling. 

Up through the dark lead, there they were: pale white indentations of what he'd been writing. Or drawing, I should say. Trust a toon to think in doodles.

The page was covered in little hearts and flowers of all different sizes. Some were plain and simple, some pierced through with arrows that had me thinking right away about those pesky little cherubs of his and what it took to call them out. Some were intricate as lace, filled through with tiny flourishes and curlicues that must've taken him some time. And there, down at the bottom, faint and light as if he'd been hesitant to write it at all… _Credence Graves_. 

“Well, I'll be goddamned,” I whispered to myself. 

Then the door to the latrine opened and I could've said it again, only louder. 

Credence slunk his way out, and a high rising trumpet moaned out a sexy little refrain as he appeared. Or should I say _she_ appeared. I was right. Credence was looking to knock me out. Me and everybody else in a fifty mile radius. 

His hair fell in long dark waves to rest at the shoulders of a navy blue evening dress that was painted on as close as his skin. He gave me a second to pull my jaw up off the floor and then looked up at me shyly beneath fluttering lashes grown almost comically long. I say comically, but there was nothing funny about the way my trousers were suddenly about as tight as that damn dress. He'd tucked a cartoon flower behind his ear, just like I'd done back at the Pacific Electric, only this was a dark purple orchid as sultry and exotic as the rest of him. 

When he saw me rise from the desk, pulling at my collar like the room was hot enough to sprout a few more of those orchids, he smiled with lips painted dark as a silent movie star's. I swallowed against the knot in my tie and watched him do a little turn on his kitten heels. 

“I learned it from Bugs," he said, as if that explained everything. And somehow it did. 

"He's such a genius, don't you think?” He sighed, and I wanted to hear the sound again as soon as I could manage it. 

“It _always_ works when Bugs does it. I figured, Debbie was so glamorous and if that's what this killer is looking for, I can be glamorous too. And that way I'm also in disguise. Incognito.” 

He had the audacity to giggle. So that's what he'd been keeping stuffed in that suitcase of his. 

“I…” 

He had me. He just did. 

"Hey,” I said, and for a second he looked as if he was gearing up for a disappointment. Somehow suddenly I couldn't bear to let him down. Not me, and maybe not ever. He'd had enough of that in his life. I just shrugged. “Who am I to argue with Marine Corps strategy?” 

He laughed and came across the room to me then, heels _click-clacking_ on the floor boards, bringing him straight into my arms. I thought of that delicate scribble on the desk--our names together and a whole page of silent hopes that until then I'd never even considered sharing with someone. 

I'd been hired to solve a mystery, but I was starting to suspect the real mystery was Credence himself. I smiled and tried to peel my eyes away from that plunging neckline only to discover I didn't really care to. 

Another one to scratch off my list, then. I did manage to pull my eyes away, just for a second. I turned my head to Minx and saw he was already starting to stretch his legs. 

“Hey pal," I told him. “Looks like you're gonna have to take that hike after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A personal reference about Bugs Bunny: 
> 
> I am one of those transmen who presented very "feminine" prior to coming out, and as a result, growing up with the image of Bugs Bunny in drag was always very important for me as well as it was for many drag performers, I'm told.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TOONTOWN. 
> 
> Detective Graves grapples with his nerves and realizes a few things about Credence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Crumb up" is WWII military slang for getting all cleaned up and dressed in your best. 
> 
> Graves, like so many recently returned from war, has PTSD. I myself suffer from it, and seeing as military service has always been essentially the family business, so have most of the men who raised me. Toontown really freaks Graves out--it's surreal and unpredictable in a way that undermines his stability a lot. He's realizing just how much Credence anchors him and how much they really need one another. 
> 
> Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes were Warner Brothers productions, just like Fantastic Beasts itself. 
> 
> The entrance to Toontown is a lot like going into Oz, hence the reference to Kansas.

Benny the cab was animated in every sense of the word.

The sun had begun to set and Credence and I finally faced the music, unwrapping ourselves from around each other long enough to crumb up for a visit to Ring Around the Rosie.

Credence was still in his “lady" getup, but even though I'd mussed him up plenty, he pulled himself back together in seconds in that way only a 'toon can manage. We left the apartment with the window cracked for Minx and a new host of cherubs for him to chase whenever he decided to slink his way back home. Then we hit the pavement.

I stopped into the liquor store across the street for a half pint of gin, knowing now that Toontown was bound to be about as dry as the Sahara. If Credence's drastic reaction to the stuff was anything to go by, drinking wasn't all that common among the 'toon set. Then again, I could picture some 'toons enjoying the ill effects of booze just as much as regular folks seem to. Most of 'em sure seemed nutty enough for it, and I wouldn't put it past them.

We hadn't called ahead for the ride, on account of Credence insisting that it wasn't needed. Next to me on the sidewalk, with his arm linked in mine and the evening breeze playing peek-a-boo with the skirt of his blue dress, he reached his arm out off the curb, thumb stuck up as if he thought maybe we'd hitch a ride like a couple of drifters. The incredulous look was just taking up residence on my face when a 'toon taxi screeched up alongside us from clean out of nowhere.

Now I'm not talking car and driver here. In Benny's case, it was all one and the same. He was a yellow checker cab, great big eyes where his headlights should've been and a wide toothy grin in place of a grille.  
I'd seen 'toon vehicles in combat plenty of times. Been nearly laid out flat beneath the tread of a German 'toon tank at one point. No matter how many times that was, it was a feeling I didn't seem to be any closer to getting used to. Something about having a machine, or any other everyday object come up to you with a face and start talking, well… it was enough to make a guy feel a little cuckoo. And boy could Benny ever _talk_. I'd spent plenty of rides chewing the fat with cabbies, but not with the cab itself.  
I had a hunch Credence knew exactly what he was doing, suggesting his friend instead of taking my car. In fact, I had a hunch Credence knew just what he was doing with all sorts of things. Seemed he'd been taking care of me without making a whole meal of it since the moment we met, and if he wasn't careful he was gonna wind up indispensable. If I'd needed a warm-up before getting into Toontown, he couldn't have done any better.

When Benny saw us standing there, that grin grew big enough to fit a whole other set of teeth. With three wheels on the ground and a front wheel lifted high, he gave what must've passed for a friendly wave among cartoon cars. Then his passenger side door popped open and he settled himself back down on all fours.

“Hiya, Credence! Long time, no see!"

He spoke in a voice rough with exhaust, the same gravel you'd expect from a longtime smoker. There was something reassuring in that, having things line up and seem natural when they shouldn't seem natural at all. I don't know why I thought a car should sound the way he did but somehow it just felt right.  
Yeah, Credence was one smart cookie. I was already starting to get the hang of things and we hadn't even gotten into the cab.

“Hi, Benny," Credence said, as I climbed into the driver's seat and pulled him in beside me. “This is Detective Graves and we're going to Toontown.”

Benny was a little two-seater with an open top like a few of the roadsters I'd driven occasionally in Europe. I reached for the wheel out of habit alone before Credence placed a hand over mine and gave his head a little shake. The gesture was wasted. Benny was already off to the races. I took my hat off in case I'd lose it and held on.

“A private dick, huh?" Benny called back, weaving in and out of traffic and earning himself a few honked horns in return. “What'd you go and get yourself into some kinda jam? Never mind, don't answer that. Next stop, Toontown!”

We were a good twenty minutes or more away from where we were going so Credence took the time to debrief me on a few essentials. I tried my best to ignore the fact that we were tearing down the road in a cartoon car and simply listen. I focused on his face and his eyes shone up at me, sleepy and soft in the evening light beneath the curtain of his lashes. That wasn't helping my concentration any, either.

“Things are different in Toontown,” he told me, "more than you'd expect. Things happen according to their own rules there: ' _toon_ rules, and a lot of those are going to apply to you as well, once you're in.”

Well, this was new. Toon rules. Couldn't say I was surprised, but I still didn't like the sound of it.

“So, they have their own laws over there, or what?"

"Laws, yes. But also _natural_ laws, too.” He frowned, mulling it over. "Or unnatural, I guess, if you look at it that way."

If I had him straight, it sounded like I'd be able to do things only the 'toons can do. That could both come in handy _and_ turn out to be a pain in the ass.

Just then, Benny chose to pipe in with his two cents, and it was about the least encouraging thing I could've heard. “If you find yourself running off a ledge onto thin air, just don't look down and you'll be all right!”

“Been doing that one all my life, pal," I answered back.

I spent the rest of the drive with Credence's head on my shoulder, listening to him and Benny explain to me all about where we were going. By the time we reached the bridge tunnel that led into Toontown itself, I felt as if my head was ready to spin right off my shoulders. I couldn't help but wonder if just that very thing might be a reasonable concern once we got over to the other side. I was jumping without a parachute now.

 

Through the tunnel, Credence cuddled close and clung onto me tight. Even in the darkness, I could see his pale face turned serious and rigid with anticipation. I knew he was still scared, despite all his stubborn speeches about wanting to come along, and I wrapped my arms around him and kissed the side of his head. It seemed neither of us was capable of keeping our hands to ourselves and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

“It's been a long time since I've been here," he told me quietly.

I hadn't thought of it before, but just then it occurred to me that Credence might not fit in much with other 'toons any better than he did with regular people. He'd had the choice to live in Toontown like so many others preferred to and still he'd decided to live in a dusty old Hollywood haunt on the Sunset Strip. He wasn't designed for comedy, or the usual wildness that goes hand-in-hand with almost all the rest of his kind. At least, not the same type of wildness, which wasn't something I cared to think about all that much.  
Whether or not he had a place out there in either world, he fit just fine right next to me. And the idea was to do what I had to to keep him there.

If I'd thought I was prepared after the Ink and Paint Club, or after Credence, or even Benny, I was just dead wrong. Nothing can prepare you for Towntoon. Everything else before was just a taste. Hell, even the war couldn't really compare.

At the end of the tunnel we reached a red cartoon curtain just like the one on the Ink and Paint Club stage. Soon as we got close, the velvet ropes swept up to either side and the curtain lifted to that same rising sound I recognized from the start of every Looney Tunes short I'd ever seen.  
It was nightfall in the world behind us, but up ahead we were hit with all the light of a hot high noon.

I had a feeling I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I raised my arm up over my forehead to block out the glare and still squinted anyway.  
A long rolling country road was laid out before us and that bright sun up in the sky had a face that was grinning and bouncing and singing a silly little song. On either side, rows of trees with leaves in every colour of the rainbow sang along in chorus, waving hello with their branches and swaying to the tune like happy drunks right before the night turns sour. The noise and the madness of the Ink and Paint Club had nothing on this place. Toontown was a candy coloured fever dream, teeming with the fruits of about a million wacky imaginations. Seeing it, the first thing that came to mind was: _my god, what have we done_.

The 'toons were everywhere. In the air, on the ground, splashing and laughing in a nearby stream… animals and plants and people of every size and hue. Music filled the air around us, and the air itself was light and bouyant in a way that had me already feeling loopy. As if we'd suddenly reached a higher altitude just driving in off an L.A. street. As we moved along, peering out at the checkered fields and hills crawling with every busy character imaginable, I thought I knew the song they were singing. It was from an old Merrie Melodies picture, just as heartfelt and surreal as the sight of Little Bo Peep ushering a flock of fluffy lambs across the dirt track up ahead.

_“Smile, darn ya, smile!_  
_You know this old world is a great world after all!_  
_Smile, darn ya, smile!_  
_And right away watch Lady Luck pay you a call…”_

Lady Luck had better hurry, I thought. Put the bad guy right in my mitts and then let me us get the hell out of here with my sanity still intact.

“Is it always like this?" I turned to Credence and asked, watching a bluebird settle itself onto his outstretched hand and fluff its feathers like he was Snow White herself. Just seeing that made something in me go soft for a moment.

He looked away from the bird and gave me a smile stretched thin over the nerves I could still see jangling away underneath. “It's actually a little quieter than usual," he answered.

"So? Whattaya think?” Benny asked, and I could see the edge of his smile as he stretched his hood around to look me over.

“I think I'm gonna have a drink," I said, pulling the bottle of gin out from inside my coat.

 

We hit the city like flipping a switch. Just that quick.  
One second we were stranded out in farmland. The next we were pulled up to the intersection of a street just as crowded as the countryside we'd suddenly left behind. I turned to look over my shoulder at the dirt road and the singing sun and it just clean wasn't there anymore. Only a bustling city fleshed out in the same palette as the Sunday funny pages. I uncapped the bottle and took another swig.

The city was as loud and out of control as the rustic hills we'd just left. That much stayed the same. I've heard people describe a town as being “alive” before, but they didn't mean it like _this_. Here the buildings on every side were just as boisterous and chatty as those singing trees. Horns honking, voices yelling, hell, even the traffic lights had something to say.

I looked to Credence, serene and thoughtful next to me with his soft lips gently parted, and a feeling of gratitude clenched me in its fist and gave me a good shake. For his calm, for his cool hand over mine on the hot seat between us, for the blue-toned black and white of him that he seemed to hate so much. He was easy on my eyes and easy on my soul and I was here for _him_. Never mind Toontown. I'd go to hell and back for Credence and I'd go there laughing.

“Take us to the bar, Benny," I said. “Let's get this thing wrapped up.”

 

Ring Around the Rosie was a crowded little place on the ground floor of a pink hotel stretching high enough above us it disappeared into the clouds. Benny dropped us at the curb with instructions to stick out a thumb if we needed, and then he was off into the sea of traffic like a rifle shot.  
I took a look up at the building in front of us, nearly losing my hat I had to crane my neck so far.

Where the country had been bright as a searchlight, here on the street it was dark again. Not even day and night played fair around this place. _Toon rules_ , just like Credence had told me.

“Well, we're here now," he said. “Right where he wants us to be.”

That sounded a lot like trepidation and I didn't blame him one bit. So I pulled him to me and ducked us both into a shady little alley next to the hotel. At the intrusion, an unseen cat yowled in complaint, knocking a greasy garbage can on its side as it scampered away.  
Credence stared into my face with round eyes as I pressed him up against the wall and crowded in.

“I'm not letting anything happen to you, baby," I breathed against his ear and he shivered. I could feel his hands grabbing tight to the back of my coat like he was holding on for dear life. “No one's ever gonna hurt you. I'll kill them with my bare hands first before they even get a chance.”

“ _Percy_ ,” he whimpered softly and it sounded like a plea.

I kissed him. Deep and searching, and he opened up to me just like the orchid in his hair brushing against my cheek. A measly half hour car ride was too long to behave myself. Even now, even right on the doorstep of danger--or maybe _because_ of it, I wanted him. I wanted him like I'd never wanted anything. It was a savage thing, that _want_. Like I could tear the world apart with my teeth, break it open bare-knuckled for every little hurt it had ever done him.  
He'd walked into my life and turned it around as fast as we'd crossed over the threshold into Toontown itself. And neither world made sense. Not the neon cartoon mayhem or the screaming, stinking trenches or even the mixed up Hollywood streets that somehow brought us together. No, the only thing that had ever made any sense was there in my arms, panting into my mouth and wanting me back just as hard. It was me and Credence all the way.

“Oh, you're making me crazy," I said, and I didn't care that my voice was shaking. "You're putting me out of my mind, baby.”

He moaned and trembled against me while the Toontown traffic roared past a few feet away. It moved like something half-remembered, barely there but for the back of my mind. I got my hands up underneath him and lifted him to wrap his legs around my waist. He came up like a feather. _Toon rules_. His skin was soft and bare underneath that dress and when he squirmed in my grip he made a sound like I was already inside of him.

“Tell me you're mine." My voice came out like a rasp against his throat. I reached down with one hand and fumbled at the front of my trousers, urgent and careless. The sobbing little noises he made were nearly desperate. “Say it, baby, please. Say you're mine for me.”

"I'm _Yo-oours_ ," he wailed. “Oh Percy _please_ , please fuck me…. fuck me right here against this wall…”

I’d never been so happy to obey an order. When I slid right into his tight heat, he was already starting that telltale shake. I opened my mouth to speak and a little pink heart drifted out of it like a smoke ring. It tasted of bubble gum. My laugh dissolved into a groan at the way he clenched hot and possessive around my opening thrust.

“What do you know, baby? You went and said it right out loud this time,” I told him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, here it is, the final chapter of my Big Toon Story. But don't worry! There's going to be an epilogue coming along and possibly even some future cases to be solved! This has by far been one if the coolest and most encouraging experiences I've had writing fic and I want to thank everyone so much for reading and indulging me in this little fantasy ❤️
> 
> This chapter is twice the length of all previous. 
> 
> Droopy the dog was a famous cartoon hound dog created in 1943 by Tex Avery for MGM Cartoons. He's characterized by his extreme slowness, monotone voice and surprising sudden strength. 
> 
> The Big Bad Wolf as depicted here is the same one from the Tex Avery cartoon "Red Hot Riding Hood," also from MGM in 1943.
> 
> "Lettuce" is some fun 1940s slang for money. 
> 
> I want to make note here of the fact that Credence in this story has some elements inspired by Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn is someone I've always loved and admired and she was much more incredibly strong and intelligent than many ever gave her credit for. In a lot of ways her vulnerability was a strength in itself. Marilyn was plagued by a lifelong fear of disappointing people, and that quality is shown here in Credence as well.

Things in Toontown happen at their own pace, and if you ask me, that pace is too damn fast. I was gonna learn some hard lessons about that before the night was through.

 

If the Ink and Paint Club catered to regular folks looking to be entertained by 'toons, then Ring Around the Rosie was the kind of place that stretched _entertainment_ to the furthest meaning of the word. And I'm not talking about singing and dancing. Let's just say, having the place set up in the ground floor of a hotel was convenient in more ways than one.

Rosie herself was a ‘toon jersey cow, with a smart mouth and the kind of no-nonsense attitude I'd never seen the madam in any house of ill repute to be lacking. As soon as I walked into the bar with Credence on my arm, I clocked her.

There she was sashaying around the place on her hind hooves, moving between the tables with all the easy grace of a professional dancer, pouring drinks and greasing palms. Watching her at it, you'd _have_ to be a sleuth to catch it all. A little gold cowbell hung at her throat like a lady's necklace, chiming softly now and then. Her every gesture screamed _I own the place,_ and in her case it wasn't a lie. I had a feeling I'd end up getting pulled back here sometime again, because funny business like hers always seems to attract cases like flies to a garbage pail.

Once we'd pulled ourselves together in the alley outside and I managed to stop breathing hearts all over the place, Credence and I found a cosy little table in the corner and set up camp. I'd say it was quiet, but we're talking about Toontown here. What I _can_ say is that it was out of the way enough I was able to sit back and case the joint uninterrupted.

Well, mostly uninterrupted. Beyond the hustle and bustle of the saloon, the Big Bad Wolf was leaning up against a far wall, dressed in a slick tuxedo and looking cool as a cucumber until he got an eye full of Credence settling in next to me. Soon as he caught sight of him, his peepers bulged out about foot away from his face and he let out a bonafide wolf whistle loud enough to crack a few glasses behind the bar. I leaned back in my chair and shot him a look that was all business. That settled him down some.

At the sound, a few of the patrons, the handful of regular men I'd been told to expect, turned our way with their faces hungry and hopeful. A whistle like that was just the signal they’d likely been waiting all night to hear, and you could tell it in every shifty detail. Big Bad wasn't the only wolf around the place, not by a long shot.  
The way Credence took it in stride, I had to remind myself that he was designed to be eye candy, no matter what he was, or in some cases, _wasn't,_ wearing. I had a feeling even if he'd walked in dressed to the neck in a three-piece suit, the reaction would've been just the same. For a disguise, it sure was getting some attention.

About a minute after we sat down, all seven of Disney's dwarfs filed in with pitchforks over their shoulders, whistling and crowding around the largest of the tables at the centre of the room. Without missing a beat, Rosie made her way over, pouring out tankards of ale and ushering a couple of sultry looking 'toon waitresses towards them. The men in the bar, both regular and 'toons alike, eyed the girls up with as much appetite as they did the steaming plates they carried, which didn't surprise me one bit.  
It seemed the dwarfs were expected, and spotting the glint of a few jewels stuffed in their satchels had me wondering just what kind of routine they had lined up with the likes of Rosie. She really did have a finger in every pie, never mind the hooves.

Either way, I was glad for the distraction. All eyes on them meant less on Credence, and that way I could pay attention to the goings-on without having to worry too much about what secret admirers he was collecting.

Like most things in Toontown, the dwarfs were an all-out spectacle. They were singing in time and thumping their fists on the table top, launching streams of ale and entire roast dinners up into the air to fall back down their gullets like a flock of hungry pelicans. Altogether, they were having themselves a regular Viking feast right there in the bar. A neat trick, I guess, if you're not too hot on chewing your food.

With the wolf and the men and the noisy dwarfs, not to mention Rosie and every shady backroom maneuver that I _couldn't_ see, my only real concern was for Credence. Somewhere in all this mess was a killer, a killer with designs on my baby. This whole idea about bringing him along was starting to feel like less and less of a good idea, and the only thing to be done about it was to get on with the case and get it behind the both of us for good.

I waved Rosie over to us and withstood her shrewd stare long enough for Credence to order something called a Gigglewater. Sounded about right, for Toontown. I had the gin if I felt like I needed a slug, but I was here to ask questions, not drink myself under the table.

“We're looking for a guy,” I said, “a 'toon."

Rosie waved her hoof at the room in no particular direction and shrugged. “Aren't they all?" she asked. Her voice was low and smooth as butter.

Credence shot me a look and smirked a little, but I got the sense he was watching to see how easily somebody might be able to get a rise out of me. I might've been in my younger days, but I’m happy to say I'm not the hot-headed type. If I had to go swinging fists every time I met a wise ass, I'd be walking around punch-drunk all hours of the day.

“A _particular_ 'toon," I told her, and then I described him.

“Ain't nothin’ in here for free, pal," she answered. Then she held out a hoof while she tapped out an impatient little rhythm against the floor.

I reached into my pocket, peeled off some lettuce, enough for the drink and what I needed to know, and slapped it down. “Alright. Now make with the dope before it's tomorrow morning already.”

“Yeah, we gotta guy like that comes around here once in a while. Haven't seen him tonight, though.”

She turned to Credence and gave him a long, appreciative look. “I'd say I could help fix you up with somebody else for the night,” she said, “but I'm pretty sure you can't do any better than a Blue Toon.”

That was meant for me, but when she started in on Credence himself, I'd heard about enough from Rosie.

“Listen, sugar, if you ever want to make a little extra--”

"Can it, sweetheart,” I told her. "This one ain't for hire.”

Credence cuddled up to me with his head on my shoulder and I pulled him in close. Rosie got the picture quick enough, stashing the money into some secret pocket in her apron and swishing off to leave us in peace.

I turned away from her and watched as Credence reached out for his drink and delicately knocked it back, appreciating the swanlike stretch of his throat as he lifted his chin. Then he set the glass down and let out a peal of laughter like a chorus of tinkling little bells. He clapped his hand over his mouth as if he'd said something naughty and I felt the grin just about split my face in two. I'd never heard him laugh like that before and it was music to my ears. If I'd had the patience to go another round with Rosie again so soon, I would've called her over to pour another one.

For a short while we just sat together, watching the activity and keeping our eyes peeled for our Dip-happy friend. Even then, _our_ eyes weren't the only ones peeled, either. A few of the regular gentlemen callers couldn't seem to quite give up their hopes on Credence, which I could sympathize with a little better if I wasn't sat there right next to him. If some of these guys weren't careful, I was gonna have to paste 'em one before the night was through.

I glowered out over the room at large, putting on my meanest mug and watching as each attempted suitor slowly paired off with his second choice for the evening. When one of them, a weaselly-looking stooge in a five dollar suit, started making for the elevators in the company of a 'toon bunny rabbit, I thought my eyes might just pop out of their sockets like the Big Bad Wolf's. I knew what they came here for, Credence and Benny had told me as much on the way into town, but somehow I'd never quite imagined _that._ I couldn't wrap my head around it and so I turned to say as much to Credence, only… he wasn't there. One minute he'd been right beside me and the next, clean gone.

My heart started up like a racehorse straight out of the gate. Where there'd been regular wall was now a perfect black hole right behind his seat, dark enough to nearly pull the light in from around it. All that was left of him was the empty glass and the even emptier chair. On the floor next to my foot was the purple orchid he'd been wearing above his ear, the type of thing you'd see on a tropical vacation instead of a godforsaken 'toon dive like this one. My stomach dropped right next to it and I shot up like a bullet in the opposite direction, shouting his name. I reached my arm into the hole and it went straight through, cold as ice all the way to the other side.

Frantically, I scanned the room, ready to just about pull my gun and start hollering I was so damn scared. Across the bar, I spotted someone I recognized and saved the gun for later, pointing my finger straight at him instead.

“You, Droopy!" I shouted. “You're coming with me.”

I stooped to pick up the orchid and when I stood back up he was still looking his way over to me at a snail's pace. Yeah, things happen real fast in Toontown, right until you want them to.

He was barely up out of his chair before I was there in front of him, shoving the flower under his nose and pulling him up by the scruff of his neck. “You're a hound,” I growled, "so do what hounds do and find him, so help you god."

He gave the orchid a lazy sniff and looked up into my eyes with a bored expression. “I don't know if I want to," he said.

“Trust me, pal, you want to,” I answered and I gave him a shake. "The one who took him is the same that killed Debbie Diamond. Somebody's Dipping 'toons around here and you're gonna help me stop him. Tonight.”

I didn't give him a chance to answer. The collective gasp that rolled around the room like a thunderclap was answer enough. One of the 'toon waitresses dropped her tray to the floor with a smash and started wailing. “She was an _a-aaangel!"_

With that, I scooped him up under one arm and marched out into the street. The cars were rushing past busy as always, as if the whole damn world hadn't just turned over on its head, and I cursed them for it. If anything happened to Credence, L.A. and Toontown and every place in between were gonna pay. They were gonna pay in ink and blood and they'd pay until I said they were done.

“Which way?" I shouted.

Droopy pointed a leisurely finger towards the alley where Credence had just been wrapped around me sweet as a dream. I'd known him for a day and already I was dreading having to go even one more without him.

I ran down the alley like a bat out of hell, the echo of splashing puddles and my own heavy breathing the only sounds. My heart was pounding all the way up into my throat. It must've been only seconds but it felt like forever by the time we reached the furthest end. Time plays by its own rules in Toontown, _'toon rules,_ and I was praying with every breath those rules were on our side.

“Now where?"

Droopy steered me to the left and I took off again, coat flapping behind me like a sail. We'd come out the other side of the alley onto some shadowy docks where a big red river tugboat sailed along in the opposite direction, singing a little ditty and shouting _hello_ as we passed him by. A 'toon otter dressed in ragged overalls waved from the main deck, cheerful as anything. Tell you what, it was gonna be a long time before I'd willingly come back to Toontown again.

I ran on for a minute or two, feeling every tick of the clock in my bones and searching the gloom in each corner along the way until Droopy said _stop_ in his deadpan voice, easy as you please. He pointed to a rickety looking warehouse up ahead and I set him down and hoofed it without him.

Soon as I got up closer, I could hear voices and my knees just about turned to jelly when one of those voices belonged to Credence. He was still alive and I could've cried right then and there the relief of it hit me so hard. The other was a man's, and there was nothing distinctive about it outside of what it was in the middle of saying.

“Damn dirty 'toon floozy," he was shouting, heavy on the _'toon_ as if he wasn't one himself. Beneath his words I could hear the scrape and slosh of something heavy being dragged across the floor and I knew it was the Dip without even having to see it.  
I crouched down and got up close enough to the door that I could take a look in between a couple of broken boards.

There was Credence, tied to a wooden chair and looking scared to death. His teeth were chattering like a pair of castanets and he was glancing here and there around the warehouse with his eyes never seeming to settle. I knew he was looking, waiting for _me,_ and the sight of it tugged at my heart--knowing he believed I was coming to save him even up to the last second. I clenched my fist and thought, _I'm here, baby. I've got you covered._

His skirt was ripped a little at the hem and one of his heels had been kicked off someplace. Now that I was there and the fear was gone, the possibility that this heartless bastard might've hurt him had me boiling. The whole world owed Credence a debt, and the payment was due starting _tonight._ I was ready to collect with interest.

The killer himself was there to the right and just as Credence had described him. Long black coat and dark glasses, with a shock of bright yellow hair slicked tightly back. Close to the wall next to him was a stack of boxes marked _ACME Portable Holes._ So _that's_ how he'd been doing it. He was struggling with an oil drum full to the brim with steaming, stinking sickly-green Dip. A little slopped over the side as he heaved it closer, and I heard Credence whimper. That was enough for me. It was time to dive right in.

I busted the door open halfway off its hinges just as he was lifting the drum up off the ground.

Right in time.

When Credence saw me his eyes shot open wide and he screamed “Percy, he's not a 'toon!" The killer hoisted the canister a little higher and I reached inside my coat and uncapped the bottle of gin I'd stashed earlier, still mostly full.

“Credence, catch!" I shouted, tossing the bottle towards him and watching it sail through the air end over end. _Toon rules._ I was counting on them now.

Credence caught the bottle in his teeth with the neck pointed straight down into his mouth and chugged. Just like we'd been watching those dwarfs do all evening, straight down the hatch. This time there were no warning tremors, no slow building shakes. He burst right into a black storm cloud and came screaming round the rafters just as that sonofabitch dumped the Dip where he'd been sitting only seconds before.

If this guy was a regular joe like me, that meant he could be hurt like one, too. No more 'toon rules now, it was my rules all the way. I came across the room like a second thunderhead, one up in the air shrieking like a demon and the other on the ground and heading straight towards him. I got him by the front of his shirt and cracked him one good, right in the face. Somewhere underneath my fist I heard his nose crunch and it sounded good so I did it again.

Turns out he'd been wearing some kind of painted mask, hiding what little humanity he had behind a phoney 'toon face. It slid right off him like a greasy rag and fell to the floor between us with a muffled slap.

The delivery boy. The one from the Ink and Paint Club. Well, god damn it all.

Once the killer's face was clear, Credence wound himself down and settled next to me, slowly pouring himself into a solid shape like thick molasses filling a Credence-shaped bottle. Just beautiful. He'd left his disguise behind in the shift between cloud and man and now stood brushing at his waist coat as if he'd simply taken a light tumble. Seeing that, I felt my heart trying to thump its way out of its cage towards him and told it _later._ Plenty of time for that now. All our lives kinda time.

“Abernathy?" he asked in a shocked little whisper, stepping cautiously forward to hover just behind my shoulder.

The delivery boy's eyes widened, stunned surprise turning straight to rage right there on his face.

“You!" He hissed, spit and blood both dribbling down onto his chin like an old drunk. “The filthy _Queertoon!_ I shoulda known!”

Queertoon. The word hit me like a ton of bricks. Those films belonged to JKR Studios, and I'd heard plenty of horror stories about what went on over there. Credence had been a _Joker_ 'toon. In all my worst imaginings, it was something I wouldn't have wished even on the lowest of the low. _Oh, Credence…_

I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “You were a Joker?” I asked, and he must've got the hurt in my voice all wrong because he shrunk into himself a little and didn't answer. Another thing to save for later, then.

Abernathy took the moment to turn it on me, instead.

“And you!" He spat. "You oughta be ashamed of yourself, carryin’ on with something like that! My father left us high and dry for a goddamn, no-good 'toon _hoor_ just like him and I ain't gonn-”

I didn't let him finish. I busted him right in the chops one last time and he went out like a light.

 

After the warehouse, things went pretty straightforward, at least as far as the case was concerned.

We found another length of 'toon rope in the warehouse and used it to tie Abernathy good and tight. Then we dragged him outside where Credence stuck out his thumb to call on Benny, and Droopy used his legendary strength to haul our catch up into the cab.

When he saw our little group crowded together in the dockyard, Benny honked his horn and grinned from hubcap to hubcap. “Holy moly!" he shouted, screeching to a stop and kicking up a plume of dust. “Some kinda detective we got here! You sure don't waste your time, do ya?"

At first, I didn't think all of us would fit, but 'toons always manage to find a way. We dropped Droopy off at Rosie's to regale whoever was left in there with the tale of the night's adventure and I heard a cheer raise up from inside as we drove off. That made me smile a little.  
The rest of the ride back out of Toontown and into L.A. proper was spent mostly in silence, the shock and relief of the whole thing finally catching up to us, I guess.

By the time we reached the police station, Abernathy was coming around and cursing up a blue streak. Which was just as well: having him beak off without restraint about what he'd done and why he'd done it sure made things a lot easier with the cops. We left the station with Credence free and clear of all suspicion and promises of compensation for the state they'd left his apartment in the night before.

And then we were home, and I was good and ready to have Credence back in my arms where he belonged.

 

As soon as we were through the door, I was reaching for him.  
Only he didn't see--just made his way towards the closet where his suitcase was stashed and started pulling it down off the shelf.

“I'll just, I'll get my things," he said, and if I wasn't getting my wires crossed, it sure sounded to me like he was starting to cry a little. I made my way across the room towards him faster than I had while throwing that first punch back at the warehouse. I wasn't losing him now, not after all that. No goddamn way. I grabbed the suitcase out of his hands and set it back down.

“What the hell are you talking about, doll? You're not going anywhere, you gotta be kidding me.”

Just there his face crumpled on me like a house of cards, sad little eyebrows screwing up and tears streaking blue down his cheeks. All in a day, Credence Barebone had brought me to life and now here he was fixing to break my heart.

“You _can't_ want me," he cried, shoulders starting to shake. "You _heard_ what he said, I'm a… I'm a dirty Queertoo--"

I grabbed those trembling shoulders and held right on to them. "Damn it all, you're the man I love, _that's_ who you are,” I said. That shut him right up.

The crying stopped like I'd shocked him into forgetting how to do it. With his eyes grown wide, he just stared at me like he'd never seen a man before and didn't know what to do about it. Finally, the breath he'd been hanging onto came out in a rush and he whispered, “you… wh… what?”

"You heard me, doll,” I answered back. "I _love_ you. I love you so damn much I'm about to lose my mind over it. I had a taste of what it's like to go without you tonight and it was enough to turn my stomach, so don't you even think about walking out that door on me.”

For a second he just stared at me and then the tears were back in business. He flung his arms up around me with his face buried against my neck and started sobbing. All I could do was hold onto him, kissing his hair and murmuring soothing nonsense into his ear. We'd both been through it. We'd been through the wars, and it was over now.

“Oh, _Percy..."_ Credence shuddered against me and I could feel him letting go of something big, a weight of years. _“I love you._ I've loved you since the minute you walked in that dressing room and took me away, I….”

“Shhhh," I said. “Hush, doll. I'm here and you can have me. You can have all of me, and if I ask you nicely, I'd prefer you didn't let me go, all right?”

He gave a little giggle, full of relief and joy and every other good thing in this world. I lifted his chin and kissed him soft and slow, the kind of kiss you'd give to coax a blushing virgin's knees a little wider. His lips were wet with his tears and even those tasted faintly sweet as I kissed them away. I ran my tongue against the seam of his mouth and felt his answering moan burn through me like the heat after a shot of whiskey. The sound went straight to my cock.

He knew it just as well as I did and soon enough his palm was there cupping me through my trousers, tracing the shape of my hardness with trembling, searching fingers. The sound I made into his wet, open mouth was a broken thing, a groan of nearly painful hunger. That's what he did to me, every time, every minute. Made me want it so bad it hurt.

I bit at his mouth and pulled back to watch him list forward, chasing after my kisses dopey-eyed and swaying like a drunk.

“Go to the desk and bend over," I said, and I barely recognized my own voice it was so ruined. He went on shaking legs without question, looking back over his shoulder with that blue flush high in his cheeks. The sight of him, bent across the desk, back arched and long legs splayed out like Bambi on his first wobbling steps… it knocked me dumb to think how much he trusted me. To know I wouldn't be a man anymore if I ever betrayed that trust. And if I was _anything,_ I was a man. I was _his_ man.

When he felt me come up behind him, he let out a high little moan of pure anticipation and I grinned. I grinned because I had plans for him and we both knew it. I put my hands on his hips and a shudder ran down his spine like hitting a tuning fork. Underneath the downtown traffic, the only sounds in the room were the clatter of his belt and our mingled heavy panting.

When I took his pants down to the floor, I slid down with them. Lifted his feet one at a time and undid his shoes, letting the heat of my mouth just barely skim his milky flesh. By the time he was half undressed he was trembling head to toe, whimpering little sounds against the fist he'd gone and pressed into his mouth.

The whimpers gave way to startled moans when I leaned in and spread him open with my thumbs. I let him feel the hot panting against his hole, feel how hungry I was for him. Let him know just what I was fixing to do.

At the first soft lick, just a taste, he cried out as if he was ready to come undone right there. It was no surprise he tasted sweet, rich and heavy like vanilla with a touch of spice and I groaned into it, setting to work eating him out like I was starved.

_“Oh! Percyyyy…. ah, ah, uh huh, nhhh…”_

All the music in Toontown had nothing on my baby. Not a damn thing. I was planning a night at the Opera, and to hell with the neighbours.

His cock was already twitching, dripping down the side of the desk where he tried to rut himself into some kind of relief, but I wasn't having it. I tugged his hips back towards my face with a growl and held him there. If he was gonna come, he was gonna do it on my tongue just how I wanted him. Soon enough, he was rising on his toes and scrabbling at the mess on my desk as if he might find something to save his life in there, knocking the telephone to the floor with a tinny jangle. The air was dense with floating hearts and when the first little angel arrived with a cheerful _pop_ Credence spilled against the desk with a sound that was almost wounded.

I wasn't nearly done with him.

Even as he sagged weak as a newborn kitten over the desk, I was up on my feet and wrestling myself out of my pants to slide into him with a single thrust. He jolted against the desk, grabbing for the edge to hold on and already moaning loud over the tail end of his own comedown. There wasn't gonna _be_ any comedown, not for either of us, not until morning and maybe not even then.

 _“Oh, angel...”_ I crooned, pulling his hips up tight against me and feeling the heat shivering all the way down in between my fingers and toes. Every stroke was pure fire, I was burning alive for him, ready to combust. “I'm gonna fuck you all _damn_ night, you hear me?" I punctuated the words with my thrusts. _"All. Damn. Night."_

"Yes, _ohhh yes_ … Percy, please _please_ don't stop, don't stop, don--”

I wrapped my arms around him tight and shuddered out a drawn-out, groaning wail between his shoulder blades, filling him so good and deep tears came to my eyes.

That was just the first. A promise is a promise in my book.

 

 

The dawn found us spent and dreamy in sweat-soaked sheets, caught up in each other's eyes and so tangled up with limbs we may as well have become one single person. Credence couldn't get enough of that one word, _love,_ saying it over and over and asking to hear it like it was the first one he'd ever learned. As far as I was concerned, it was the only one he’d ever _need_ to know. God knows he'd heard enough bad ones to last him a lifetime.

“Credence..." I started in and lost my way right off the bat, so I tried again because I didn't want to know and still felt that I had to. Must be the detective in me.

“Credence, were they… was it very bad?” It was all I could manage. "If they hurt you..."

I'd been worried I might be souring things but he just smiled a little sadly and shook his head. “It might've been worse," he said. “For a lot of the Queertoons, I guess it was."

I watched his eyes drift over the memories, deeper and darker and more full of feeling than anything nature could've designed. A being of pure passion and imagination, and he'd gone and chosen _me_ of all the lucky sonsofbitches in the world. I wanted to tell him what I'd do, how far I'd be willing to go to make things right for him if he wanted me to, but this wasn't about what I needed to say anymore. This was all about Credence.

“They wanted me in the movies, of course," he told me and I held my breath. "That's what they drew me for, you know? But then… they got me in front of the camera with another 'toon and I… well, I just sat down and started crying.”

He turned to me and shrugged, looking as if he was confessing some terrible failure. “They were so disappointed in me,” he whispered.

I let that held breath out and took another one in. “Are you telling me JKR Studios never put you in one of their films?”

Tell the truth, I was ashamed of the relief that was waiting in the wings. It didn't matter either way and Credence had to know that.

He stared back at me with the telltale look of dawning realization. “Well, no," he said, almost as if it should've already been clear as day. “The Studio's under a lot more pressure about that kind of stuff nowadays. They didn't know _what_ to do with me, so for a while they just had me singing and dancing.”

He started to blush again, of all the damn things. “Kind of a striptease sort of thing, like I told you before… entertaining.”

 _"Entertaining the troops,”_ I answered, remembering back to his voice in the dark, when the nightmares were hanging on the air and he was just a beautiful stranger. You could've struck me down dead, that's how stunned I was. “You mean you…. there've been _men,_ I mean, there must’v--”

That sapphire blush got deeper, all the way down to his collarbone, and he had the nerve to look almost _prim._ After everything we'd done.

“Well, no, silly,” he said. “That's why they retired me. There wasn't anybody, not until… well, _you._ You're all I've ever wanted.”

His eyes grew somehow deeper, soft with tenderness as he said those last few words in a hush. I was dizzy with it when he laid his head down on my shoulder and looked up into my face from underneath his dark lashes. Credence was a whole case to be solved all on his own, and I was the man he wanted for the job.

Trust his luck, he had to go and fall in love with a goddamn _fool._


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I opened up the door to the apartment, there he was: my special someone of singular quality. Couldn't have said it better myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's finally here! 
> 
> A good few months have passed and lots has changed for these two. Everything pretty much speaks for itself, but it may be fun to know that Betty Boop now runs the Ink and Paint club, and good for her! 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [Absolutely recommended music during reading](https://youtu.be/8joiCJLHY3o)

If you'd asked me a year ago where I might see myself in the future, well…. picking out a cartoon ring would probably be the last place I'd tell you. But 'toons have a funny way of turning things all upside down on a guy, and Credence was fixing to win the prize on _that_ contest. In this case, looks like the grand prize was gonna be a great big shiny diamond, courtesy of one lovestruck schmuck: Percival Graves, private dick. 

The thing is, I wasn't on my own anymore. Not as Percival Graves, and not as a detective, either. Looking over all the shiny baubles in the display case, laid out on the purple velvet like stars in the night sky, I had to smile a little. At the unlikely situation I'd found myself in, and at the memory of Credence seeing the new sign painted on the frosted glass of my office door. If he'd seemed dazzled by _my_ name there the first time he'd so fatefully crossed the threshold into my apartment and into my life, well… he'd just about swooned right into a faint when he'd seen the addition of his _own_ right next to it. 

_Barebone and Graves_. It had a nice ring to it. About as nice as those sweet little doodles he'd drawn on the notepad next to the phone, the ones he still didn't know I'd seen and _certainly_ didn't know what kind of a madness they'd inspired in me. Ever since that day, my head had been just as full of hearts and flowers as the page he'd most likely crumpled up and flushed. I'd been laying awake nights next to him, caught up in visions of his name tangled all cozy with mine just the way he'd spelled it out. The only thing that had ever sounded better were the soft little snores keeping me company while he dreamed away peacefully at my side. Right there where he belonged. I had to admit it, even just to myself: I had it bad, worse than any guy had maybe _ever_ caught it, and putting his name next to mine on the business cards amounted to my _own_ hopeful daydreamy scribbles. 

Hope was the name of the game here. I never would've believed looking into the murder of some shady nightclub owner would wind me up with a partner, but there I was: hat twisted in my hands as tight as my gut in a Toontown jeweller's, searching for a gem that could even come close to shining as bright as my baby. He'd been my partner in bed and crime solving and everything else. Now I was fixing to have him as my partner in holy matrimony and there was nothing I could do about it. My heart just wasn't gonna let me off the hook on this one, not ever. 

As it happened, the salesman wasn't about to let me off the hook any easier. The man in question was an old 'toon gent fashioned along the same lines of a suave English butler, waxed moustaches and all. When he saw me come through the door, he perked right up, tugging his waistcoat neatly in place and fawning over me like he hadn't seen a customer in close to fifty years. I had to wonder, out of all his customers, whether many or few, how often were they regular guys like me? 

I could've gone looking for a ring someplace right downtown, or any other part of L.A., for that matter. But those stores didn't deal much in the way of 'toon jewels, and they didn't deal much in the way of 'toons getting hitched up with regular fellas like me, either. In fact, despite it's being legal in the state of California for at least a couple of years now, most folks still frowned on it. And if you asked me, most folks could go ahead and piss up a rope. A bum murder rap and a killer on the loose couldn't keep us apart, and neither would the opinion of anyone from the Governor to the Pope himself, if I had any say.

So I had Benny take me down into Toontown and told him to drop me off at the fanciest jeweller he knew. Then I walked in right off the street, took one look at Jeeves and said: "Mister, I've got myself the best damn partner a guy could want and it's time to tie the knot." 

Like I said, the salesman was only too happy to oblige me. Pretty soon I was showing him the snapshot of Credence I keep tucked in my wallet and grinning like a dope while he promised he had _just the thing_. He might've been a 'toon, but he wasn't kidding one bit. The man knew his stuff. 

He led me over to a far counter and pulled out a gold band sporting a hunk of ice that shone faintly blue under the light. As he turned it this way and that, it glimmered that same sparkle I'd seen in Credence's eyes the first time I'd told him I loved him--like a whole constellation was trapped inside to guide the way. 

"A solitaire," the salesman said, "for a special someone of… _singular_ quality."

"Wrap it up," I told him. 

 

Once the cops had reimbursed him for the damages and Credence's place at the Coronet was all fixed up like new, I wound up moving in. First thing I'd done that day was carry him over to that big four poster bed I'd been so curious about, and we'd spent an afternoon just consummating the deal. And I'll tell you another thing: those blue satin sheets had lived up to every one of their promises. 

We kept my old place for the office it was always meant to be and soon enough we were taking cases as a team. We'd put Minx on the phone to take the influx of calls coming in, because wouldn't you know it--as soon as word got out there was a private eye duo one half of which was a Blue Toon, and taking 'toon cases to boot, well… we were _swamped_. Turns out 'toons have about as much need of our services as regular folks do, if not more so, and it wasn't long before we'd become something like folk heroes among society's more _animated_ section. 

And Credence was a natural. He was intuitive, quick on his feet and sharp as a tack. And more than anything he was _brave_. I knew it wasn't gonna be long before _he_ was the one rescuing _me_ , thinking of how, in so many ways, he already _had_. We were both of us living half a life before we found each other, and nobody was more aware of that fact than me. Just looking around at my old office on that moving day--the tired old Murphy bed up against the wall and the empty bottle of Jack tipped halfway off the desk--I had no idea what I'd been doing before Credence came along. _Existing_ was about the kindest word I could come up with for it. 

 

When I opened up the door to the apartment, there he was: my special someone of singular quality. Couldn't have said it better myself. 

He was stretched out on the couch in that naughty whisper of a house robe, poring over a brightly coloured copy of "Amazing Cartoon Case Files" and looking like an oil painting come to life. I dropped my hat on a side table, yanking at my tie as he looked up with a dreamy smile and sighed. It was a Saturday afternoon in between jobs and leisure was all we had on our hands. I had a mind to make the most of it, and from the looks of things, Credence was already one step ahead of me.

"Hi, gorgeous," I said, settling in next to him on the couch. I leaned in and gave his neck a light nibble, just enough to feel him shiver into it. "Did you miss me?" 

"Mhmmm." 

He snaked his arms up around my shoulders and pressed into me close enough I could feel just how _much_ he really had missed me. After so many months, you'd think the two of us would start winding down on that kind of excitement at the sight of each other, but it seemed we were only just getting started. 

"Where did you go?" he murmured into my collar and I felt a pang of something almost guilty, having to dodge it even for such good reason. 

"I had a few little errands to run," I told him and when he blinked up at me, I smiled and did my best to turn him onto much more interesting things. 

"You know, I was thinking tonight we should go out dancing. Maybe to the Ink and Paint? See how Betty's keeping up?" 

"Really?" His eyes lit up and I had to remind myself it wasn't really a ruse. I'd already called ahead and set the whole thing in motion, with Betty as my gleeful co-conspirator. 

"Well, it _is_ a Saturday night" I said. "And haven't we been working hard lately?" 

He nodded vigorously, still dazzled by the prospect of having me take him out on the town for once without a case being at the heart of it. 

"We _have_ been working awful hard," he agreed. 

Just then he jolted in my arms as if he'd been suddenly goosed. "Oh! What will I wear?" 

His eyebrows were doing the worried little thing that makes me want to pull the moon down out of the sky if that's what it might take to smooth them back out again. 

"How about that nice blue suit?" I said, watching him begin to nod in consideration. 

I leaned in and added softly against his ear, "The one that's just about the same shade as those satin sheets I been thinking about all day… and about as soft, too. That'd feel real sweet, with you in my arms out on the dancefloor, don'tcha think? 

Credence sighed and melted against me, that sapphire blush starting up in his cheeks just like I knew it would. "That all sounds wonderful," he said, gone a little breathless now. 

"It does, doesn't it? We can make a whole night of it. A little dinner, a little dancing…" 

I slid my hand between the folds of his flimsy robe and ran it slowly up one silky thigh. "But first, I think I want to feel those fingers in my hair." 

Another flick of my wrist and the robe parted for me as I slid down to kneel on the carpet before him. His knees spread apart along with the robe, breath already picking up into soft panting. It had become a sort of game for me, seeing what kind of spectacular effects I could get out of him with a little elbow grease. Hearts, flying cherubs, and on one memorable occasion steam screaming right out of his ears like a kettle on the boil. With Credence, there was no holding back, and once I was done making fireworks I was gonna take him down to the club and show him just how unwilling to hold back I really was. 

 

A few hours later, we were just about at the club when I found myself letting loose in a whole other kind of way. 

Not half a block from the alley, with Credence on my arm floating alongside me like something out of a dream, somebody made the mistake of trying to ruin our big night. Doesn't matter what he looked like or how he was dressed because soon as he opened his mouth he was _nobody_. 

In the moment, I was all eyes on Credence, seeing how perfect he was there smiling up at me and just thinking about my plans to make that smile a permanent fixture. And then this wise ass had to go and _spit_ right at his feet as he passed us. For a second, it almost didn't even register--until I watched Credence's face fall a little and heard the guy mutter something under his breath along the lines of _'toons_ and their _tricks_. 

And that was all it took. Even with all that cool blue right next to me, I saw _red_. I spun around and caught the sonofabitch by the shoulder, yanking him back just enough to paste him one good right as he turned to face me. He went down like a sack of rocks right there in the street, and I tell ya, I was almost disappointed. I'd set out that night to make a declaration of my love and in that moment I was just as happy to declare it with my fists, forget music and diamonds. 

I heard Credence give a shocked little gasp behind me and when I came back to him his eyes were stunned wide and he was shaking a little. With my arm around his waist, I pulled him off the street and back down the alley with me. It gave me a touch of the _deja vu_ , thinking about that first time in Toontown, up against the wall with his legs wrapped around me--that desperate, world-shaking passion holding us in its grip just as tight as we held each other. I knew right then if he was wearing a dress instead of the suit I'd suggested, we'd be dancing that little number all over again. 

Instead, I pressed him up to the bricks all the same, and before he could even stammer out what he was trying to say, I kissed him. I kissed him like the whole city was falling down around us and I didn't give a damn about anything but him. And it was easy to do because it was nothing but the truth. 

When I came up for air I heard him gasp out my name. His face was in my hands with my eyes locked on his and we were both shaking. I couldn't bear to have even a breath of space between us so I panted out the words against his ravaged lips. 

"Nobody talks like that to you, baby. _Nobody_. Nobody touches you, nobody hurts you, nobody gives you so much as a funny look. And if they do, I'll lay every man in this town out on the street just like that one back there." 

I jabbed my finger in the direction we'd just come, never taking my eyes off his. He was looking at me with those midnight eyes like I was the only thing in the world and I'd never seen anything so good in all my life. It was that love at first sight in the dressing room all over again, only this time I understood it for just what it was. I knew right then the moment had made its own choice. 

He watched with the beginnings of a confused little frown as I stepped back and started to get down on one knee right there in the dirt of the alley. When I reached inside my coat for the ring, he let out a disbelieving sob and clapped his hand over his mouth. There was no going back, and there never had been, not for us. 

"I was gonna do this inside," I said, "but we met under worse circumstances than this, right there in that club behind you and it was the best thing that's ever happened to me, so I figure now's as good a time as any." 

I pulled out the diamond solitaire and his eyes got so big it was like looking into the clear night sky, all stars and endless possibility. Just then that sky started to rain, tears pouring down over his pale cheeks, dripping beneath the hand still trembling at his mouth. He was like this when I found him, I thought, when I took him away from it all and he saved my empty life and made it full again. 

"Doll, I love you so goddamn much. I'd ask you to make me the happiest man in the world, but I can't because you've already gone and done that. You do it every day with every breath you take and I can't thank you enough." 

I reached out and took his left hand in mine, holding it and feeling how it shook like an autumn leaf. 

"What I _can_ do is ask you to be my husband, baby. Hell, never mind _asking_ , I'm ready to beg. I can't…" 

My voice caught. I'm not one for crying, but Credence, he had a way of cutting me through to the quick, right from the very start and I couldn't hide myself from him even if I tried. 

"I can't live without you, baby," I finally choked out and I heard him sob again. "I can't live one second without you and I want the whole world to know how damn proud I am about it."

His chest heaved a few times and he took a deep breath as he dropped his hand away from his mouth. For a second his bottom lip quivered as he struggled to speak. "But… Percy, are you _sure?_ " he finally asked. "I mean I'm… you _know_ …. I'm _blue_." 

"Aw, doll," I said, and I slipped the ring on his finger where it fit like a glove just how it was meant to. "Don't you know blue's my favourite colour?" 

Yeah, never mind music and dancing. That exuberant _yes_ was the sweetest sound I've ever heard, and I was ready to spend my whole life moving to the tune.


End file.
